Buyers paid €51,418 per square metre in the city-state, which only grew in popularity during the pandemic
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Monaco’s prime real estate market remained strong despite global macroeconomic challenges and became the most expensive prime property market in 2023, according to a report Monday from Savills.
The price per square metre in the principality may have grown just 0.9% during 2023, but that increase, however slight, left the average price per square metre at €51,418 (US$55,852).
In comparison, the price per square metre was €39,100 in Hong Kong, €25,300 in New York, €18,900 in London and €8,400 in Dubai.
There were 416 transactions across the principality in 2023, which represented a decline of nearly one-fifth compared to the previous year. However, the total transaction value declined by a smaller amount than the number of transactions, which indicated that fewer but higher value transactions were recorded in 2023.
In examining the total sales by price point, the proportion of apartments selling for more than €5 million increased 2% in 2023, while the share of apartments sold priced below that same threshold fell by an equal amount, according to the report.
Interest in Monaco has risen since the pandemic, contributing to space constraint issues in the principality. Residence card applications also now require a property’s size to match the intended occupying family’s size, which has resulted in greater scrutiny, Savills said.
In response to this rule, many new-build projects are offering larger apartments. The sales of more spacious apartments with three or more bedrooms accounted for over 60% of new-build sales and 22% of the resales across the principality in 2023.
“The number of resales in Monaco has returned to pre-pandemic levels, and this rebound has largely been driven by the increase in sales of larger apartments,” Kelcie Sellers, associate director of world research at Savills, said in the report.
Potential buyers don’t just want to live in Monaco. They are very specific when it comes to choosing a particular district or even development. Together, Monte Carlo and La Rousse comprise over 40% of the total housing area in the principality, yet they accounted for more than 60% of resale transactions in 2023.
In fact, the mean price for resales increased to an all-time high in five out of seven Monaco districts in 2023. Jardin Exotique and La Condamine saw the highest price-per-square-metre growth of 19% and 22%, respectively. Larvotto maintained the top spot for most expensive district by square meter, according to the report.
In an effort to meet the high demand for real estate in this principality, which is smaller than New York’s Central Park, construction projects are in progress. Two large communities are expected to launch this year: Mareterra and Bay House Monaco. These projects will add a combined 166 new apartments and 15 villas to the Monaco market.
Prospective buyers around the world are approaching the current market with caution as they wait to see how macroeconomics, inflation and interest rates play out. However, as Monaco offers somewhat of a safe haven, it may attract buyers who would have purchased property elsewhere, which would continue to drive demand in the coming months, Savills said.
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Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.
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A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.
The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.
“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”
The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.
It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.
In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.
“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.
The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.
“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.
He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.
The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.
“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.
His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.
“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.
When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.
They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.
The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.
For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.
“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”
As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.
“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”
Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.
