The Italian Housing Market: monetary policy, COVID-19, the case of Milan

Before getting to the heart of the analysis, it is necessary to distinguish the types of contracts that affect the longer-term rental market. This division is adapted on the basis of 1.7 million new contracts registered in 2017 by the Agenzia delle Entrate (for a total of 2 million properties). They do not interface with the same market segments, because they offer different types of accommodation and different contract durations (although all have a minimum duration of 1 year).

The 4 typologies that we will analyze in the last three years are:

Ordinario Transitorio (Ordinary Temporary): They are non-concessional contracts with duration between 1 and 3 years. Generally, this category includes the non-subsidized transitional rental market. For investigation accuracy, it should be borne in mind that it could also include contracts for students, if the property was located in low-stressed municipalities.

Ordinario Lungo Periodo (Ordinary Long Period): They are non-concessional contracts with a minimum duration of 3 years. Generally, this category includes the long-term rental market. Since the boundary between the markets is not always clear, it should be remembered that contracts with agreed rates in low-stressed municipalities could fall into this category.

Agevolato Studenti (Student subsidy): They are subsidized contracts with a duration ranging from 1 to 3 years. Generally, this category includes the subsidized rental market for students in high-stressed municipalities.

Agevolato Concordato (Subsidized Agreed): They are longer-term concession contracts with a duration of more than 3 years. Generally, in this category we can insert that market of subsidized rents with agreed rents present in high stressed municipalities. In a sporadic way, contracts for students in high-stressed residential municipalities with a duration of three years could also be counted in this set.

The parameters that we will take as a reference, consistently with those identified by the Agenzia delle Entrate, are:
- The number of rented houses
- The surface of the buildings (on average)
- The fee established in the contracts (annual and average €/ m²)
- The residential stock leased in one year
- The intensity of the rental market, which is the ratio between the number of homes rented (new contracts) and those that are potentially rentable. Obviously, some houses will be used as main home, therefore the stock of potentially rentable houses concerns all those secondary and rentable dwellings. [...]