Montopoli Group
Montopoli Group · Est. 1986
A discreet, transatlantic advisory founded in Florence and quietly at work between Italy and the United States for nearly four decades.
Request a Private ConsultationA note from the partners
Montopoli Group was never built to scale into a listing machine. It was built, in a single office above a Florence bookbinder, to advise a handful of Italian families buying farmhouses in Chianti — and to do it well, quietly, and without a sign on the door. Thirty-eight years and four offices later, that posture has not changed. We are not a marketplace. We do not advertise our inventory. We are a small house of sixty-two advisors who sit on either side of the Atlantic and pick up the phone to one another when a client crosses an ocean.
If you have arrived here, you are most likely considering a property above €1 million, in either market, and you would prefer to speak with a person who has closed the kind of transaction you are contemplating. This page is a brief account of who we are, how we came to be here, and what we actually do, day to day, for clients we have known for decades.
— Pietro Montopoli, Founder · Elena Montopoli-Reeves, Managing Partner
Chapter I
Pietro Montopoli registered Montopoli Group S.r.l. in the spring of 1986, above a bookbinder's workshop on Via Tornabuoni. He had spent the previous decade brokering agricultural estate sales on behalf of a handful of Florentine families — discreetly, by telephone, and almost entirely by referral. The firm he founded was a continuation of that practice: a roster of private clients, a black leather ledger of off-market properties, and a refusal to publish a price on a window.
The original clientele was almost entirely Italian — old Milanese and Roman families acquiring a casa in Chianti or a stone farmhouse in the Val d'Orcia, then, increasingly, a piano nobile in Florence itself. Word crossed to New York through a single client: a Florentine industrialist's daughter who, in 1989, asked Pietro to help her find a townhouse on the Upper East Side. He did, personally. The firm's transatlantic identity began with that one transaction.
From the outset, the firm kept no public listings. It still does not.
Chapter II — III — IV — V
A chronology of the firm's expansion, set as four chapters rather than a corporate timeline.
By the record
€4.2B
Cumulative transatlantic sales closed since 1986, across 3,800+ transactions.
62
Licensed advisors across Florence, Milan, New York, and Miami.
47days
Average time-to-close on a cross-border transaction, versus an industry average of 112.
740+
Off-market listings held privately — none published on Zillow, Idealista, or Rightmove.
Robb Report ranked Montopoli Group #1 "International Luxury Brokerage — Italy to U.S." in both its 2023 and 2024 Buying Guides. 2024 transaction volume: €612M, up 23% year over year.
The practice today
Four capabilities the firm offers on every engagement above €1M.
Featured capability
On any transaction above $3M, an in-house Italian notaio, a U.S. real-estate attorney, and a CPA sit on the same call. They review the deed, the trust structure, the currency conversion, and the Italian registration tax (imposta di registro) before a single euro moves. This is the single most defensible capability of the firm, and the reason cross-border closings average 47 days rather than 112.
Inventory
A standing portfolio of properties — Tuscan estates, Milanese attici, Manhattan and Brooklyn townhouses, Miami waterfront — circulated only within the firm's network of 1,200 vetted advisors and 41,000 pre-qualified buyer profiles. Nothing on the open portals.
Representation
A buyer looking between Tuscany and the Upper East Side, or a seller with one property in each market, works with a single senior advisor who coordinates both desks. The retainer model, not the portal model.
Beyond real estate
Where a transaction is part of a larger estate, residency, or relocation plan, the firm refers clients to a small, vetted circle of private banks, fiduciary attorneys, and residency-by-investment specialists in both jurisdictions. Introductions are made by name, not by tender.
A conversation begins in writing, and always in confidence.
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