Monaco’s resale market reached a record €3.25 billion in total transaction volume in 2025, according to IMSEE, the Principality’s official statistics office. Yet the most consequential acquisitions in that figure were never advertised. No portal listing. No public price. No open viewings. They moved through a parallel infrastructure of trusted relationships, pre-qualified introductions, and mandates held quietly by a handful of specialists who operate almost entirely out of sight.
For ultra-high-net-worth individuals and the family offices that manage their real estate allocations, this is not an anomaly. It is the preferred architecture of the market they inhabit.
The reasons are not simply about exclusivity. They are structural. When a property enters a public listing portal, it signals either that the seller has been unable to transact privately, or that they are indifferent to confidentiality. In Monaco, where the addressable market is genuinely small and the buyer community is well known to itself, a public listing invites scrutiny of both the asset and its owner.
For buyers managing nine-figure wealth, that scrutiny runs in both directions. Appearing as the purchaser of a high-profile Monaco property creates reputational and security exposure that most principals and their advisors would rather avoid. Off-market acquisition keeps the buyer’s identity and motivation away from press, competitors, and opportunists alike.
There is also a quality argument. Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2025, based on interviews with 150 family offices globally, confirmed that direct real estate accounts for 22.5% of the typical family office portfolio, with more than four in ten offices actively looking to grow that allocation. The properties that satisfy the asset quality criteria of institutional buyers are rarely offered openly. Trophy floors, seafront penthouse positions, and single-title villa lots in Monaco come to market on the seller’s terms, and those terms typically exclude public exposure.
In Monaco, the primary access mechanism is the exclusive or semi-exclusive mandate held by a specialist agency. A mandate grants the agency either sole or shared authority to represent the seller, typically without any public advertising component. The property is introduced only to pre-qualified buyers whose profile matches the seller’s criteria.
Relationship networks operate alongside mandates. Senior agents with decades of activity in the Principality maintain direct contact with the owners of the most desirable buildings. When an owner begins contemplating a sale, the first call goes to the advisor they trust, not to a listing portal. This is where true off-market inventory originates: in conversations that precede any formal decision to sell.
Agencies operating at this level do not wait for mandates to arrive. They maintain a continuous dialogue with building managers, notaries, and the legal advisors of existing owners. Baldo Realty Group was built specifically around this model of relationship-first intelligence, giving UHNW clients and family offices access to properties that are never listed publicly.
Buyer-side mandates are equally important. When a family office or principal instructs a specialist agency with a confidential acquisition brief, the agency can actively approach potential sellers on their behalf. This reverses the typical dynamic: rather than waiting for supply, the buyer creates it.
A family office acquisition of Monaco real estate rarely involves a single decision-maker acting unilaterally. The Knight Frank Wealth Report 2025 found that next-generation involvement in investment decisions now affects 58% of family offices surveyed, with multi-generational decision-making the norm across all three generational cohorts. In practice, this means a Monaco acquisition may require sign-off from a principal, their legal counsel, one or more investment committee members, and in some cases a family governance committee with its own mandate constraints.
The timeline implications are significant. Deal windows in Monaco’s off-market sector are narrow. A seller who has agreed informally to a price will not hold indefinitely, and in a market where competing buyers may be introduced through the same relationship network, institutional governance processes must be calibrated to move when required. Pre-authorisation of acquisition parameters — price range, ownership structure, geographic preference — is a precondition for effective access.
Advisors engaged ahead of the search also matter. Family offices that enter Monaco with tax counsel, a preferred notary, and a corporate structure already in place are measurably faster to transact than those building the advisory team mid-process.
Monaco property due diligence follows a notarial process governed by Monegasque civil law. The compromis de vente (preliminary sale agreement) is binding on both parties and typically includes a 10% deposit from the buyer. Unlike some jurisdictions, there is limited recourse to withdraw once the preliminary contract is signed without forfeiting that deposit.
Ownership structure is the first decision that shapes all subsequent costs. Individual buyers and Monaco Société Civile Immobilière (SCI) vehicles pay registration tax of 6% of the purchase price. Foreign companies acquiring directly pay 9%. The SCI is governed by Articles 1670 to 1711 of the Monegasque Civil Code and by Law No. 797 of 18 February 1966, and it remains the preferred vehicle for estate planning purposes: inheritance of SCI shares may in certain conditions be subject to inheritance tax at rates ranging from 0% to 16%, materially lower than many European jurisdictions.
For family offices with complex structures, the interaction between the Monaco SCI, any holding entities above it, and the tax residency profiles of the beneficial owners requires coordinated advice from Monaco-registered legal counsel and the family office’s home-jurisdiction tax advisors. This is not a process to construct after an offer is accepted.
Monaco’s security environment is exceptionally strong by European standards. The Principality operates one of the highest ratios of police officers to residents in the world, with CCTV coverage across essentially all public spaces. Building-level security varies, and institutional buyers undertake their own assessments of access control, concierge discretion, and the resident profiles of neighboring units before committing.
Paparazzi activity in Monaco is concentrated around a small number of locations and events, and the buildings where the most prominent residents choose to live are generally understood to offer effective separation from street-level observation. Due diligence on this point is informal but material: advisors with long-standing knowledge of specific buildings can provide relevant context that no listing document will contain.
Staff management is a related consideration. Household staff employed in Monaco operate under Monegasque employment law, and discretion clauses are standard in employment contracts for properties managed by institutional or UHNW owners. The property management infrastructure in Monaco for this segment is mature and well-practised.
Off-market transactions in Monaco do not follow predictable timescales. A principal may begin a relationship with a specialist agency one to three years before a suitable property becomes available. The relationship itself is part of the acquisition strategy: the more clearly an advisor understands the buyer’s parameters, the faster they can act when the right opportunity surfaces.
When a property does become available at the required level, the speed of response is critical. Off-market sellers in Monaco are rarely under financial pressure; they are more likely to have multiple informal conversations in parallel, and the buyer who can confirm structural readiness — financing arranged, corporate vehicle in place, advisors instructed — wins the off-market window.
Average processing time for a Monaco residency application, which often accompanies an acquisition at this level, is two to five months, per the official requirements of the Principality. Buyers planning to establish residency alongside the property purchase should initiate the residency process promptly and separately from the property transaction.
Off-market pricing in Monaco operates in the absence of a liquid, transparent reference market. The Knight Frank Wealth Report 2024 places Monaco as the world’s most expensive city for prime residential property, at only 16 square metres per $1 million. Resale averages reached €51,967 per square metre in 2024, per IMSEE data, while new-build units in Larvotto associated with the Mareterra development have transacted above €97,500 per square metre.
In off-market deals, the seller typically has a price in mind derived from a combination of replacement cost, comparable closed transactions known to their advisor, and an assessment of buyer demand at that moment. The buyer’s information disadvantage is real, and the remedy is a specialist advisor who has access to closed transaction data that does not enter the public domain. Price discovery without comparables is not guesswork; it is the product of relationship access to the market’s actual transaction history.
Seller motivation matters too. Some off-market sellers in Monaco are estate situations or restructuring events, where timing pressure creates negotiating opportunity. Others are discretionary sellers with no urgency, where the buyer’s ability to transact without friction may be more compelling than marginal price movement.
Monaco levies no personal income tax on residents. There is no capital gains tax on property disposals, and no wealth tax or inheritance tax between direct family members. These structural features are documented in Monaco’s fiscal framework and represent a material long-term advantage for multi-generational wealth holders compared to most European jurisdictions.
Residency in Monaco requires proof of adequate accommodation and financial self-sufficiency, demonstrated by depositing at least EUR 500,000 in a Monaco-registered bank account, among other routes. Property ownership, while not the formal basis of residency, anchors the accommodation requirement and in practice provides the clearest demonstration of intent to establish a genuine presence in the Principality.
Ongoing property charges in Monaco include syndic fees for building maintenance and common areas, which for premium buildings can be substantial, and management costs if the property is professionally managed. Monaco has no annual property tax (taxe foncière or taxe d’habitation equivalent), which meaningfully affects the total cost of ownership calculation relative to comparable prime markets in France or the United Kingdom. Readers interested in how Monaco compares structurally with other major wealth relocation destinations can find additional context in our analysis of Monaco versus Dubai and Switzerland.
For family offices with diversified global real estate holdings, Monaco typically performs a specific role rather than functioning as a pure investment asset. The absence of yield (most UHNW Monaco holdings are owner-occupied or discretionarily managed) positions Monaco property as a residence asset, a political risk hedge, and a safe-haven store of value rather than an income generator.
The liquidity characteristics of Monaco real estate are relevant to portfolio planners. The market is small by volume — IMSEE recorded 569 resale transactions in 2025 across the entire Principality — but prices have demonstrated structural resilience. The combination of constrained supply, no new land development outside of Mareterra, and continued global demand from UHNW buyers means that the market does not typically experience the demand collapses seen in more liquid prime residential markets. For context on the performance of specific trophy asset categories within Monaco, our analysis of penthouses, seafront positions, and villa lots provides relevant detail.
An acquisition at this level involves at minimum a Monaco-registered notary (who handles the legal transfer and registration formalities), a tax advisor with Monegasque and home-jurisdiction fluency, and a specialist real estate agency with verified off-market access. For buyers establishing residency, a Monaco immigration lawyer is also standard. For properties exceeding certain value thresholds or involving multi-entity ownership structures, independent valuation advice and a corporate administrator may also be required.
The coordination of these advisors is itself a project management exercise. In the Monaco market, where the same notaries and legal firms are known to all parties, relationships between advisors matter to deal flow. A specialist agency that has long-standing working relationships with the principal legal and tax advisors in the Principality will navigate the acquisition process more efficiently than one operating as a transactional broker.
Family offices should resist the temptation to manage the Monaco acquisition from the principal’s home-jurisdiction advisors without local support. Monegasque legal structures, notarial conventions, and the informal norms of the market are sufficiently distinct that local expertise is not optional at this level.
For a confidential discussion about off-market acquisition strategy in Monaco, contact Baldo Realty Group directly. We work exclusively with UHNW buyers and family offices, and every client engagement is conducted with full discretion.
The information in this article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice. Readers should seek independent professional counsel before making any property acquisition or residency decision.
