Italian brokers cheer home price drop as a path to recovery

Rome

AS Italian home prices head for an eighth straight year of decline, some real estate agents are cheering on the drop. "I hope prices will stagnate or even keep falling," said Claudio Parenti, one of the heads of Rome for Tecnocasa, the country's largest property broker. "Along with easier credit conditions and lower mortgage costs, that will help match supply and demand and increase transactions."

Values mean little if the buyers aren't there and the declines are helping close a gap between asking prices and household spending power that has snuffed out home purchases since the the first of two recessions hit Italy in 2008.