· Thoughts
Want lower rents in Milan? Protect landlords
Empty flats, Airbnb and rigid supply: to bring rents down you need landlord protection, certain timelines and more building—not just blame on private owners.
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Want to lower rents in Milan? You need to protect landlords.
In Milan I own several apartments that I rent out: good-quality properties, mostly in recent buildings, which I rent almost exclusively to international students.
It’s a deliberate choice, also to limit some of the risks tied to letting.
Empty flats and short lets
I know several owners, however, who prefer to keep apartments empty, or put them on short lets via Airbnb, rather than risk ending up with a tenant who stops paying and won’t leave the property.
And what’s the result? Fewer homes available for traditional rentals, more competition among tenants and further pressure on prices.
We keep talking about rents being too high, but far too little about what it would take to actually increase supply.
Two fronts
In my view you need to act on two fronts.
The first is stronger protection for landlords, with certain and reasonable timelines to recover a property when the contract isn’t respected. That doesn’t mean taking rights away from tenants; it means creating conditions of greater trust for both sides.
The second is building more, unlocking the planning and administrative gridlock that slows or blocks new construction in Milan. Naturally within the rules, but with predictable timelines and procedures.
Supply and demand
Because in the end the market also follows a very simple logic: supply and demand. And rents rarely go below 4–5% of the real value of the property, which tracks inflation and construction costs.
If demand keeps growing and supply stays rigid, prices are unlikely to fall.
The right to housing is fundamental, but it can’t be guaranteed by dumping all the uncertainty onto private landlords while at the same time obstructing the creation of new homes.
We can keep blaming people who own property, or we can start asking how to convince more people to put homes on the market—and how to build new ones.
P.S. For anyone wondering: I didn’t inherit anything. I’ve invested serially for over ten years, using my savings and income, with an aggressive strategy, taking risks and using financial leverage.