Bocconians Make a Business Out of Helping Students Find Apartments

THREE YOUNG BOCCONI GRADUATES HAVE TURNED A WIDELYFELT PROBLEM, FINDING AN APARTMENT IN MILAN, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE FROM OUT OF TOWN, INTO A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY: THEY NOW MANAGE HUNDREDS OF APARTMENTS THAT ARE RENTED OUT TO FOREIGN STUDENTS


If you are an international student, looking for a place to stay in Milan country is complicated. University dorms do not have enough rooms to meet student demand, so incoming students have to turn to the free market to rent an apartment in the city. Since they experienced the problem on their own skin when they were studying, two Bocconi graduates have started a successful and growing business that targets foreign student rentals.
 
In 2012, Dawid Baranowski, a Polish citizen who graduated from the Bachelor in International Economics and Finance, and his class mate Daniel Philipp, from Germany, founded Renting Milan, a real estate company specialized in renting lofts or apartments to those coming to Milan from abroad to study.  "It all started with a building in viale Ortles, in Southern Milan, where Daniel had moved", says Dawid. "We persuaded the owner to entrust it to our management and soon we are able to fill all the apartments with renters."

Knowing English is still, and it definitely was in 2012, a not negligible competitive advantage, as well as knowing exactly what renters are looking for. "We look at all the apartments before listing them on our portal", Dawid says in the company of Francesca Chiumiento, who holds Bocconi undergraduate and graduate degrees in Economics and Management of Culture and the Arts and has also joined Renting Milan, "and we are there to help solve any problem tenants might encounter. Also with respect to landlords and landladies, we make sure they trust us and also perform a function of cultural mediation, because sometimes owners are reluctant to rent their apartments to students of certain nationalities."
 
Renting Milan manages about 900 apartments in the city. It is a chartered real estate agency and offers all the traditional real estate services, such as contract registration, with the cost being shared by landlords and tenants. "In the near future we want to expand and become an all-round service company, by offering additional services such as setting up telephone and internet lines, or housecleaning services. And maybe we’ll expand beyond Milan, because there are many college cities in Europe and the number of students on the move has been steadily increasing in recent years.”
 

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Alex Foti