Real estate: Monaco in the proptech era

In the next few years, Monaco aims to become a mecca for "proptech" innovation. Throwback on this dynamic and the technological challenges it is raising in the Principality.

What is "Proptech"?

Proptech" is the abbreviation of the English terms "Property" and "Technology”. In other words, it is the sector that includes all information technologies applied to the real estate market.

From construction to maintenance, including design, operation and financing, many data solutions are emerging in the real estate industry today. They simplify the decision-making process and transform a sector that is entering a new phase of its digital transition. It is also an excellent way to strengthen the predictive analysis of developers and asset managers regarding the state of the property being managed.

From now on, data opens the way to numerous applications: real estate asset management (rental, maintenance and upkeep), promotion (virtual visit), marketing (knowledge of prospects), transactions (secure digital signature), energy efficiency (IoT sensors), etc.

After a timid emergence at the end of the 2000s, Proptech is a sector that is now attracting record investments.

The Monegasque real estate market: an undeniable experimental value for proptech players

The Monegasque real estate sector is simply the most expensive luxury real estate market in the world. The price per square meter reaches 50,000 €, far ahead of Hong Kong which occupies the 2nd place with its 13,000 €/m².

In 2021, the median sale price of a property was estimated at €5 million. With only 440 transactions, the total amount of real estate exchanges in Monaco reached more than 2 billion euros in the same year (according to the Observatoire de l'Immobilier).

Today, the Principality wants to place itself at the forefront of innovation and become a key player in proptech. The aim is to facilitate property management and transactions in this tense and particularly lucrative market.

In Monaco, the construction and real estate sectors generate 20% of GDP and more than 1,750 jobs. It is therefore no coincidence that the government's strategy is to exploit this new digital environment to make Monaco a place of innovation for proptech.

In the coming years, Monaco even aims to become the Singapore of Europe. A city-state at the heart of digital innovation, capable of hosting pioneering investments and providing engineers on a territory equipped with 5G to test life-size solutions.

Monaco: becoming a key player in proptech innovation

In 2019, the news had not gone unnoticed: the Principality is the first country in the world to have been fully covered by 5G in a partnership with the Chinese operator Huawei. When you consider that 5G speeds are 100 times faster than 4G, it's easy to imagine the possibilities that this technological leap will bring.

At the same time, it has taken advantage of the 2020-21 period to digitally equip its businesses through the co-financing scheme provided in the Extended Monaco program.

In an interview with French Web in February 2021, Frédéric Genta, the inter-ministerial delegate in charge of Monaco's Digital Transition, stated that "more than 35% of the recovery plan (announced in September 2020) is dedicated to digital". Monaco has given a clear priority to proptech and yachtech.

At the same time, the Principality has set up a sovereign cloud capable of providing dematerialized public services (smart city, e-health, e-education, e-administration) and hosting private clouds of Monegasque companies (which should represent 80% of hosted data by 2026).

To sum up, Monaco is an ideal playground for engineers and proptech start-ups.