The creation of 2,500 new apartments is expected in Milan by mid-2024. Milano Contract District works on the interiors of 60% of them, proving itself as the main interior design partner of the most important residential projects that are transforming the city, projecting it into its future. “A leadership conquered thanks to the intuition of proposing for the first time in the real estate world new services capable of integrating home design with the housing offer, making the quality of the proposal increasingly innovative and aligned with the needs of new classes of buyers” explains Lorenzo Pascucci, founder of MCD and today one of the most prepared and aware interpreters of the trends that are changing the concept of living and, consequently, transforming the urban landscape of the Lombardy capital and its housing offer.
The reference market is large: according to research by the Study Center of Abitare Co., over 200,000 new inhabitants are arriving in Milan by 2026, a number that further increases interest in the real estate asset class, which has already been very high for some years, especially in the Lombardy capital. “The driving force – remarks Lorenzo Pascucci – is the continuous birth of start-ups in the city (editor’s note: an Italian record in percentage terms), an increasing number of foreign students and the attractiveness of a metropolis that is more and more appreciated internationally for the quality of life and the high working standards. Milan today steals the show from other previously undisputed European cities”.
The transaction figures for new homes are record numbers and beat all previous data, even pre-covid. “The Milano Contract District model has just as evolved as its proposals have grown as a result in these 6 years. We have opened new business units within the platform, entirely dedicated to the new residential Build to Rent sector (i.e. new properties or redevelopments intended for rent). The numbers – emphasizes Pascucci – are growing double-digit and MCD can already boast several successful case histories”. In the same way, the digitization process implemented in the last 24 months has further increased the distance from competitors and general contractors who, unlike MCD, are mere suppliers rather than business partners of real estate operations.
“Our projects in progress in Milan are numerous and all of great importance” continues Lorenzo Pascucci. “Think for example Princype, designed by architect Marco Piva, which alone has over 200 apartments of different sizes. We have also completed this year the delivery of Horti, a project of 80 apartments in a residential complex in Porta Romana signed by Arch. De Lucchi. In the city center, in the middle of Covid, we were also protagonists with our services within The Central Tower, over 60 units designed by the Citterio studio which thanks to Goldman Sachs has redeveloped an entire sector in the shadow of the cathedral. In Porta Vigentina we are completing the installations of Crivelli 30 and managing the 44 buyers of Urban Garden in Porta Romana for the same client. We are also working on prestigious projects in Rome. At Porta dei Leoni, for example, the creation of over 100 apartments in the heart of Trastevere has just begun and in Via Cassia, in 2021, we delivered over 40 units of a new Greenstone funds division”.
Milan is increasingly becoming an international metropolis and its real estate market continues to grow. The future is promising and the city has already embraced it, with the keywords that will determine the success of post-covid urban centers: attractiveness, inclusion, environmental sustainability, regeneration, proximity. These are the same values that guide the action of MCD, which has all the credentials to play an increasingly leading role both in the development of the Lombardy capital and on a national level. “In 2021 MCD closed the year with a turnover on interior products of approximately 13 million euros and delivered a total of over 300 furnished apartments. In 2022 it aims to double revenues by becoming the first service provider in Italy of interior design for the Real Estate channel” concludes Lorenzo Pascucci.
Milano is a city in continuous expansion.
The research of Abitare Co.
The residential market is certainly driving the economy of the whole country, especially in the Lombardy capital which, two years after the start of the pandemic, is reconfirmed as the capital of design and incubator of new and revolutionary start-ups. This is what some recent data provided by the Study Center of Abitare Co. have shown, in which the city of Milan is the best to start a business: between April and June 2021 an increase of 6.8% was recorded compared to at pre-pandemic levels (2017-2019 three-year average), while registrations in the other Lombardy territories are only up 3.2%. The Lombardy capital alone, after the paralysis of spring 2020, accounts for over 40% of new businesses born in the region. And the percentages at a national level are left behind: in the rest of Italy the figure is even negative with a – 3.6%.
Milan is also one of the Italian realities with the greatest global reach also in terms of attracting talents. International students who have chosen to carry out or complete their studies in one of the 8 universities of the metropolitan city are, in fact, more than 15.000, over 80% of the total 18.000 in Lombardy. The data is particularly significant, considering that it refers to the academic year 2020-2021, the first hit by the pandemic.
In fact, young people from abroad have grown up and have chosen to study in Milan universities. The number of international students in Milan in the 12 months taken into consideration increased by 4.6%. Compared to the recent past, growth is weaker (in the last three years the year-on-year expansion has stood at around + 11%), but the positive sign clearly indicates that the internationalization process of Milanese universities has not stopped despite the pandemic. In particular, foreign students represent 6.7% of the 227.000 total enrollments in Milan (one percentage point more than the whole of all Lombardy universities).
A similar steady growth of students also has positive repercussions on the real estate market. In the residential sector, 2021 closed with a clear positive sign in Milan. Between used and new homes the increase was + 22.5% for 2020 and + 4.3% for 2019. In 2021, transactions for new homes grew by 12.2% in 2020 and 7.9% in 2019. The total number is 6.250, a figure that also beats the previous pre-covid record of 2019 becoming the highest ever. Prices have also increased, the end-of-year average of which stood at €6.140 per sqm, up + 9.8% on 2020. But although construction sites are in full swing in the city, the share of new homes for sale is still low compared to the overall numbers: it is in fact only 17.3%. And finally, the overall turnover of the sector has also grown: an increase of 30% is expected over 2020, reaching 8.6 billion euros.
Milano Contract Distric
Born in 2016 from an idea of Lorenzo Pascucci, today with a solid internal logistics structure and a team of over 70 professionals, MCD, through its concept showroom of over 1,700 square meters, aims to integrate the process of furnishing and fit-out with the constructive one in a single direction. Since its foundation, MCD has received important awards. For example, it was reported as Lombardy’s Excellence in 2016 and received an Honorable Mention at the ADI Compasso d’Oro 2018. Also in 2018 it was reviewed among the most avant-garde start-ups by the Proptech observatory of the Milan Polytechnic. The following year it was awarded start-up of excellence for the innovation of its processes dedicated to Real Estate on the occasion of the IX edition of the Fonti Innovation Awards, and finally it was reported, in the March 2020 edition of Harvard Business Review, as Excellence in Real Estate and Services for the Residential Market category.
MCD brings together the best design brands on the Italian market to offer professionals in the sector – real estate operators, architects and interior designers – a package of exclusive “keys in hands” services designed to best meet the changing needs of the residential real estate market. Today, Milano Contract District has an active partnership on over 94 construction sites in Milan and beyond, with a portfolio of over 2000 housing units to be delivered within the next 3 and a half years. It works with important national and international players. One of the most significant projects includes Citylife with Generali. Its clients are Bnp Paribas RE, Savills, Dea Capital, Nexity, Reale Immobili (the RE division of Reale Mutua), the investment funds Polis, InvestiRE sgr, Kervis sgr, the companies Rusconi, Borio Mangiarotti, Mangiavacchi and Pedercini.
In October 2018, MCD’s profound know-how in the residential sector focused on the growing trend of micro-units, giving life to More + Space, the business unit specializing in new design, layout and interior solutions with the design and build formula. In May 2020 Milano Contract District launched Home-J (or Home-Journey), the first web app in real estate that allows one to control every phase of the journey that leads to the construction of a new home. Home-J is a digital interface system, developed from the ERP management system of MCD, capable of translating procedures and processes that combine the construction chain with that of home design with a B2C language.
In May 2021, thanks to its long experience in the real estate market, MCD debuted in the office sector with a new dedicated business line and presented an example of future workspaces within the new office mockup designed for The Medelan, the prestigious real estate complex in the heart of Milan, subject of a very important urban redevelopment. In 2022, thanks to the success of its business model and the growing demand for services in residential Real Estate, the founder of MCD, Lorenzo Pascucci, announced development projects for new Design Platforms both in Rome and in Milan.