In the fourth quarter of 2019, notary agreements regarding sales of real estate units and any other kind of exchange of properties and appurtenances in return for payment were 233,755. Seasonally adjusted data show that they increased by 0.6% compared with the previous quarter. The residential sector followed the general trend (+0.8%), instead and the economic properties sector decreased by 1.3%.
In comparison with the previous quarter, the residential sector showed positive changes in all the geographical areas of the country (South +1.8%, Islands +1.6%, North-east and North-west +0.7%), with the exception of the Centre (-0.1%). The economic sector increased in South (+4.1%) and North-west (+3.2%) while contracted in North-east (-7.8%), Centre (-5.5%) and Islands (-2.3%).
Almost the total of notary agreements (94.0%) affected transfers of residential properties (219,742), followed by transfers of properties for business purposes (13,091; 5.6%) and estates for special uses and multi-owned properties (922; 0.4%).
Compared with the fourth quarter 2018, real estate unit exchange agreements rose overall by 1.5% (+1.7% the residential sector; +1.2% economic sector).
For the housing sector, the trend growth affected the entire national territory – South (+4.5%), North-east and Islands (both +2.1%), North-west (+1.1%) – with the exception of the Centre (-0.4%). For the economic sector the increase affected South (+6.6%), North-west (+2.5%) and Islands (+1.3%), instead Centre and North-east were in decline (respectively -3.4% and -0,7%).
At the level of types of municipalities, the growth in the housing sector affected small towns (+3.1%), while it remained substantially stable in the metropolitan cities (-0.1%). On the contrary, in the economic sector, the increase affected metropolitan cities, while remained fundamentally unchanged in the small cities (+0.1%).
Mortgage-secured loans (110,293) rose by 0.4%, compared with the previous quarter, and declined by 4.5% on an annual basis.
Compared with the previous quarter, mortgage-secured loans recorded posive percentage changes in North-west (+1.0%), North-east (+0.6%) and South (+0.5%) and negative percentage changes in Centre (-0.7%) and Islands (-0.2%). Compared with the fourth quarter 2018, the decline affected whole national territory (Islands -10,0%, Centre -8.2%, South -7.6%, North-east -2.0% and North-west -1,6%) and all types of municipalities (metropolitan cities -5.8% and small municipalities -3.5%).