The new year will bring price hikes on several fronts. Despite the efforts of the new government, the list of higher prices is long and will weigh on household budgets at the end of the month. Energy tariffs are certainly in the foreground and, while reductions are expected on the electricity and gas front, attention is directed to oil prices. Yesterday Brent prices rose again to their three-month highs, reaching above 85 dollars a barrel. A similar trend was also recorded by the Texan WTI which climbed to the $80 area. The increases were driven by the news of the easing of anti-Covid restrictions in China and subsequently the Russian ban on exporting crude oil to countries that have imposed a price cap on black gold. Prices could rise again and bring fuel prices back up in 2023.
Car insurance
Motorists’ wallets are also threatened by the rise in motor liability rates. According to the most recent IVASS bulletin, in the third quarter of 2022 the actual average price paid for the motor policy increased by 2.5% to 362 euros on the previous quarter. The trend “interrupting an economic downturn that had lasted uninterruptedly for a year” says Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumer Union. It is not certain that this trend will continue in the next quarter, however according to Massimo Dona it is “a very bad sign”.
More expensive mortgages
In focus there are certainly loans for the house. The change in the monetary policy of the European Central Bank ushered in a season of rises for the household rate. The installment of variable-rate mortgages immediately rose, while the existing fixed-rate ones remained unchanged. On the other hand, the rates for the new fixed rates stipulated after the first ECB hikes starting from last summer have become more expensive.
At its last meeting in December, the ECB increased interest rates by another 50 basis points and, according to the simulations of Facile.it, this could translate into an increase in the installments of variable mortgages in the coming months, with increases of almost 35 euros per month for an average loan and a total increase of around 180 euros compared to the beginning of the year (+39%). For the analysis, Facile.it examined a variable-rate loan of 126,000 euros over 25 years signed in January 2022, analyzing how the installment has grown from the beginning of the year to today and how it could further increase in light of the new cost increase of the money announced by the ECB.
Rental fees
The latest analyzes by the Research Department of the Tecnocasa Group see rents in a rapid recovery, achieving, in the first part of 2022, an increase of 2.1% for studio apartments, 2.4% for two-room apartments and 2 ,2% for three-room apartments. After the significant drop in values recorded in 2020 due to the decreased demand and increased supply caused by the pandemic, the growth in rents continues thanks to the progressive return of students and off-site workers. This scenario is also joined by the return of tourists who feed the short rent segment, with the consequent subtraction of the residential offer. Rents are increasing in all major cities and especially in Milan. In the provincial capitals, rents have never stopped growing and continue to rise: +2.7% for studio apartments, +2.8% for two-room apartments and +3.0% for three-room apartments.
Food
Cereal prices are sharply increasing in the last few days of the year and the trend could continue in 2023. The recent trend was triggered by the arctic cold wave in the United States: temperatures down to minus 40 degrees Celsius could lead to significant losses in the winter wheat growing regions of one of the world‘s largest wheat exporters. In the futures markets, these concerns have translated into higher prices for wheat. In the United States, quotations increased by almost 4%, reaching their level at the beginning of December.