Housing in Monti

Type of buildings

In the inner streets (via Panisperna, via dei Serpenti, via del Boschetto, via Urbana, via dei Capocci) the stock dates from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries: four- or five-storey buildings, narrow stairs, tiny courtyards, flats often carved out of subdivisions with windowless rooms or windows onto light wells. On via Nazionale, via Cavour, piazza dell'Esquilino and upper via Panisperna there are instead late-nineteenth-century Umbertine blocks, with high ceilings, lifts added later and a porter.

Things to check: no lift on upper floors, damp on ground floors and basements built against the hill slopes, noise on streets with bars, the state of the services in subdivided buildings.

The rental market

Monti is among the rioni with the highest share of homes used for short-term tourist lets, and the supply of long leases is scarce and expensive compared with the rest of the city. Those looking for a stable home have better odds in the eastern part of the rione towards via Merulana and San Giovanni, or just beyond via Cavour towards the Esquilino, where the buildings are Umbertine and larger. Single rooms are in demand from students and foreign workers because of the proximity to Termini.