Italian Auction Market: Features of Discounted Forced Sale Price

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the main causes of discount between list price and forced sale value in the Italian real estate auction segment, in favor of more comprehensive determination of the value of mortgage underlying guarantees; this would allow for an improvement of further valorization processes of assets intended to obtain a higher selling price. Starting from the results of existing literature, an ordinary least squares regression analysis was conducted in order to point out the main determinants of the discount between list price and forced sale value. It has been verified, when sampling 225 cases of forced residential property sales in the South of Italy, that the time constraint of the Italian regulatory framework is more relevant with reference to discount rather than the physical characteristics of assets. The influence of the duration of procedures is proof that even if recent government initiatives have led to positive results in terms of reducing the length of procedures, this is not yet satisfactory compared to other European contexts. This provides evidence of the need for further interventions aimed at improving the efficiency of the procedural system, also encouraging recourse to other options that lead to ease judicial burden.