The popularity and the interest for properties in Abruzzo was in rise and had been like that for a few years thanks to a good promotion abroad done by the Region Administration and by several Britons who decided to invest in there, attracted by fairly low prices and beautiful scenarios. But then the earthquake of April 09 drastically changed everything.
The tremendous quake and the huge amount of damaged that it caused has been seen by millions of people, an interest hugely amplified by the G8 as media from all over the world followed big personalities walk through rubbles and promise to sponsor the reconstruction of this monument or that church. But if the media did good giving great visibility to Abruzzo, on the other hand gave the impression that the region had been completely destroyed, instead of highlighting the fact that the quake was localized in the city of L’Aquila and its surround towns. This pushed tourists and property buyers away from Abruzzo, who diverted their interest to the bordering region of Le Marche and to other parts of Italy. This has caused to Abruzzo’s economy a bigger damage than the quake itself.
Although less than expected, also Abruzzo property market has been affected by all this factors, bringing down the number of enquiries by 19% throughout the eight months right after the earthquake. The decrease was steeper during the first four month to rise up a little in the last four month of 2009.
The return of interest in the last months of the year gives a wave of optimism and hopes that property in Abruzzo will weather the storm and will come up again in 2010. This optimistic scenario is backed by the fact that the number of enquiries sent for Abruzzo properties in January 09 are 42% up compared to January of the previous year.
The most interested are Americans and British, accounting for the 39% of the enquiries, but a big interest comes also from Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden and France (all together share the 42% of the requests). Mainly the requests are for restored properties or in habitable conditions (61%), with 2 bedrooms (44.9%), with an average price of
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