Well, it is substantially true and imho the main reason is Italy has had a very low birth rate since the ‘90s (and it keeps going down). There has been an ethnic substitution - whatever you may call it - but of course immigrants cannot afford many houses and so prices went down a lot. Lots of people own their dead parents houses and they don’t renovate them because it is not economically convenient.

Things are very different in big cities like Milano or Roma and in major tourist destinations, where prices went up steadily in the past 10 years. Scarce properties’ prices in Milan skyrocketed. Sounds familiar? :)