Luxury property booming as the rich pour into Monaco

An artist's impression of the Tour Odeon penthouse and pool area

Neil Callanan

Monaco, the tax haven on the French Riviera, is experiencing a luxury-housing boom that includes the world's most expensive penthouse as developers prepare for an influx of millionaires and billionaires escaping higher taxes or a loss of banking privacy.

A "flow" of new residents is emigrating from Switzerland, where financial-secrecy laws are crumbling, said Jean Claude Caputo, managing director of broker Savills' French Riviera unit. They're drawn by the principality's "security, sophistication and climate," he said - as well as for financial reasons. The Swiss government signed an accord in May to automatically share bank data across borders.