Another week of weakness ends for stocks in the real estate sector, listed on Piazza Affari and, in Europe, with investors’ attention focused on central bank meetings and also on the quarterly reporting season which has come into full swing from one side of the Atlantic to the other.
Central banks: everything as expected or almost
The Federal Reserve cut US interest rates on Wednesday, and Governor Jerome Powell struck a more hawkish tone than expected. The ECB, the following day, confirmed the cost of money, as expected, at 2% and President Christine Lagarde left no clues about future choices. For the two major central banks, stable rates are expected in December, since Powell also held back on another possible cut in the last meeting of the year. The Bank of Japan closed the eighth, with the confirmation of interest rates at 0.5%, which also raised its 2025 GDP forecast.
The performance of the sector on the stock exchange
The real estate sector in the Milanese square closed the eighth once again in decline with the FTSE Italia All Share Real Estate index losing 0.8%. The performance of the sector was also subdued at a European level, with the Stoxx 600 Real Estate index slipping by 0.3%.
Real estate securities listed in Milan
Among the real estate companies listed on Piazza Affari, Brioschi is the worst and slipped by 4.4%. Gabetti fell by 2.6%, while Aedes limited the decline to 1.9%. The decline of Next Re (-0.6%) and IGD (-0.5%) was fractional. Risanamento is positioned on the upward side, showing an increase of 1.8%. Abitare IN earns 0.5%.
Macroeconomic data
Mortgage applications continue to decline in the United States. In the week to 17 October, the index measuring the volume of mortgage loan applications recorded a decrease of 0.3%, after the -1.8% recorded the previous week. The index relating to refinancing requests rose by 3.99%, while that relating to new applications decreased by 0.3%. The Mortgage Bankers Associations (MBA), indicated that 30-year mortgage rates fell to 6.37% from 6.42% previously.
House prices in the United States are increasing in August 2025. The S&P Case-Shiller index, which measures the price trend in the main twenty metropolitan areas of the United States, showed an increase on an annual basis of 1.6%, slowing down compared to the +1.8% of the previous month but higher than what was expected by consensus (+1.4%). On a monthly basis, there was a decline of 0.6%, compared to -0.3% in July. The seasonally adjusted index reported an increase of 0.2% on a monthly basis, after -0.1% in July.
No growth, however, for home sales in the United States, according to the numbers that emerge from the purchase agreements, an indicator of the prospective trend of the real estate and mortgage markets. In the month of September, the pending home sales index published by the Association of Real Estate Operators (NAR) is therefore the same as in the month of August, stuck at 74.8 points. The figure compares with the +1.6% expected by analysts.
Sector studies
The Italian institutional real estate market is recording a recovery trend: the first 9 months of 2025 closed with approximately 7.5 billion euros of investments, a level approximately 13% higher than the figure for Q1-3 2024, a year already growing in relation to the previous one. The recorded volumes also increased on a 12-month rolling basis (+18%). The result also highlights growth compared to the average of Q1-3 of the last 5 and 10 years (+14 and +19% respectively). Leading the volumes of the first 9 months of 2025 were the Retail and Office sectors, with 29% and 23% respectively, followed by Hospitality with 20% of the total volume ytd. Note of merit for the Hospitality sector, where the growth recorded in the first 9 months of the year was the most important among the asset classes tracked: +91% compared to the same period in 2024, and +56% compared to the 5-year average, despite the relative decline in Q3. The Alternatives sector, which includes some emerging segments, also contributed to the investment volumes for a total growth of +69% compared to 2024; within this asset class the destination in first place is that linked to Living, followed by Healthcare. The volumes achieved by the Retail asset class translate into growth of 16% on an annual basis, which rises to 108% compared to the 5-year average, confirming the dynamism of the sector, following a sustained recovery of interest, after having experienced contractions in previous years. Even in the Office sector, the volumes recorded at the end of Q3 2025 are growing y/y, although substantially in line with the 5-year average (-2%). Logistics, which contributed 14% of total volumes, was characterized by a decline of -23% compared to Q1-3 2024, although the total recorded in the first 9 months of the year remains in line with the 10-year average for the sector.
