Housing Costs Development in Italy: Implications for Tenure Inequalities

This chapter unpacks the composition of housing costs in Italy, shedding light on the main trends in house prices, utilities, andaffordability over the last twenty years. It shows that the overburden of housing costs is more severe for private tenants, urbansingles, and households at the bottom of the income distribution, highlighting widening divides across tenure, householdtypologies, and income levels. These disparities are largely shaped by the ambiguous approach of public policies in the field ofhousing, characterized by inertia when it comes to promptly addressing emerging challenges, and disregard for any notions ofredistribution when actions are taken. The chapter illustrates this contradiction by examining several post-pandemic interventionsdesigned to alleviate housing costs, including incentives for energy retrofitting and rent allowances.