Italy Housing Plan, guaranteed mortgages and support for youngsters: the role of Consap

Interview with Prof. Lawyer Vincenzo Sanasi d'Arpe, CEO of Consap

One of the pillars of the Housing Plan is the public guarantee for first-home mortgages. Access to the Fund is reserved for young couples (married or cohabiting for at least 2 years) where one partner is under 35, for single-parent households with minor children, for young people under 36, and for families with 3 or more children who meet specific ISEE requirements. Within this framework, what is Consap’s role and support?

“The project envisioned by the Government aligns with the social role, professional expertise, and solidarity-based nature of Consap. As the Prime Minister recently reiterated, the goal is to make effective ‘a major Housing Plan with controlled prices for young couples. Because without a home, it is difficult to build a family.’

Consap can make a substantial contribution to the implementation of the Housing Plan by providing the know-how and expertise acquired over the years through the First-Home Mortgage Fund for young couples. The Housing Fund has taken on new centrality, especially under the current management: it not only facilitates access to credit for the purchase of a home – a primary and fundamental good – but also acts as a lever to support birth rates and offer concrete assistance to large families, another key priority of the current Government. Consap is able to identify the needs of the most vulnerable groups of citizens and propose measures that make support instruments more efficient.”

In the first half of 2025, more than 38,000 mortgages were issued and guaranteed by the Fund, a 20% increase compared to the same period in 2024, for a total value of €4.8 billion (+34%). Is this a positive signal? Which factors contributed the most to this growth?

“It is a positive factor that demonstrates the constant improvement of the tool, which has now become a point of reference for young Italians. Through the First-Home Mortgage Guarantee Fund (established by the 2014 Stability Law), from January 2024 to today alone, we have issued 971 mortgages in favor of large families and nearly 350,000 in favor of under-36s, with the growth you highlighted also confirmed in the first half of 2025, specifically +23%. Consap’s ability to constantly improve the tools available to citizens is one of the factors that make them more effective over time. To meet demand, we have already taken steps to request additional funds to be allocated for 2025, confident in this Government’s determination—another decisive factor in the tool’s growth—to ensure that Consap can serve as a concrete and operational instrument supporting young people on their life path.”

What impact do the emancipation and independence of young people buying a home have on the country’s economy? Why are guarantee instruments like these crucial?

“Consap concretely focuses on young people and supports them in the most important moments of their journey, such as education, housing independence, family, and parenthood. In this sense, under the current management, Consap has evolved from a mere implementing body into a proactive, strategic entity in delivering public policies that are accessible, concrete, measurable, and capable of identifying the needs of the most vulnerable and least protected groups. Guarantee instruments such as the Housing Fund or the Study Fund allow young people to invest in their future, triggering a virtuous mechanism of social well-being for the entire country system. Beyond the Guarantee Fund, we must not forget other protective tools such as the First-Home Mortgage Suspension Fund or the Solidarity Fund, active since 2007, which allows for the temporary suspension of mortgage installments in the event of circumstances that reduce the household’s financial capacity.

Housing, like education, work, and family, are pillars for the growth, stability, identity, and independence of young people. Becoming independent from one’s family of origin lays the foundation for creating a new one. The family is a founding value for our country, explicitly recognized in Article 31 of our Constitution. But this value is not only legal: it is ethical, cultural, and social. Pope Leo XIII reminds us that ‘from families comes the future of peoples’, and I am convinced that today, more than ever, it is necessary to concretely put the family back at the center of public policies.”

Not only young people: following a technical proposal by Consap, the 2025 Budget Law extended until 2027 the state guarantee of up to 90% also to large families. What effects can we expect?

“In the latest Budget Law, the state guarantee was strengthened up to 90% for families with at least five children and an ISEE up to €50,000, and, following a technical proposal by Consap, the extension was prolonged until 2027 not only for traditional priority categories (young couples, under 36s, single-parent families, public housing tenants), but also for large families. Furthermore, the funds allocated for the 2025–2027 three-year period were increased to a total of €670 million.

This is another measure that reflects Consap’s commitment to concretely expand the categories eligible to apply for a loan to purchase a home, and it will lead to a further increase in applications for access to the Fund. This is why we are in constant dialogue with Institutions to ensure we are ready and responsive.”

Considering the many measures proposed and carried out by Consap, what is its social role in the country?

“The success and spread of these initiatives reflect Consap’s ongoing commitment to the well-being of Italian families and the social role the company plays for the community. Consap places at the nation’s disposal the valuable wealth of experience and expertise gained in over 30 years of activity serving Italians, especially the most vulnerable groups of citizens.

In this direction, initiatives aimed at promoting investment in Social Housing, Senior Living, and Student Housing are also being developed, with the goal of addressing pressing social needs and once again supporting fragile and vulnerable groups. And here we reconnect with the first question on Consap’s contribution to the Housing Plan, because this too is an area of intervention of great importance for the Meloni Government due to its significant social and economic implications. It is precisely Consap’s mutualistic mission, capable of combining the State’s solidarity-based intervention with the implementation of the most innovative ESG investment policies - understood in the broadest sense of shared social well-being - guaranteed through residential urban regeneration programs.

I would like to stress that carrying out initiatives that create social well-being like these helps improve the living conditions of countless citizens, generating not only real estate value over time, but also environmental benefits from these buildings, which, thanks to compliance with sustainability targets, are energy-efficient or have a reduced ecological impact.”