The impact of Energy Performance Certificate level on house listing prices. First evidence from Italian real estate

The recent dispositions related to the energy performance of buildings, launched by the European Directives 2002/91/EC and 2010/31/EU and adopted by Member States at national and regional level, turned attention to the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), a mandatory requirement for house apartments put up for sale since 2012. The aim of this study is to investigate the economic effects of the recent Italian statutory provisions related to energy performance of buildings on listing behaviour in the Italian residential real estate market. With this aim an hedonic regression analysis is performed, in order to measure the impact of EPC level on listing prices and its relationship with the other house characteristics. The study, based on a set of more than 500 housing property asset collected in 2012 from real estate advertisements websites, is focused on the Turin real estate market as a case study. Furthermore this paper contributes to the early limited literature on implication of the impact of EPC level on Italian housing market, representing one of the first systematic evidence about the energy certifications in the housing listing prices.