Investimenti modulari nel settore immobiliare: il valore della flessibilità nella realizzazione dei porti turistici

Real estate market has been affected by the global financial crisis. Despite the property market crisis, the touristic sector in Italy, and in particular marinas and harbors, showed positive signals. Investors’ interest in this sector has grown year over year due to the undersupply of marinas compared to the growing demand of berths and wharfs, particularly in places with high potential, where the marine touristic sector is a chance in terms of growth and occupation. Investments in this sector are characterized by high irreversible sunk costs and uncertainties over future demand and returns. It is quite common today to design marinas which can be expanded by sequential or modularized investments in order to meet the requirements of facing and adapting to changes in the state variables (e.g. demand, rate of return, etc). Traditional DCF methods fail to capture the value of growth options embedded in these projects. Accordingly to the real option approach, the paper analyses the optimal investment strategy of an entrepreneur who wants to invest in marinas development programmes. We model the entrepreneur’s investment decision taking into account not only the value of the immediate investment, but rather the value of subsequent investment opportunities and real options interactions. We consider interdependent projects, where investing in the first project provides the opportunity to acquire at maturity the benefits of the new investment by making a new outlay. The model is tested on an Italian case study of property investment in the construction of a new marina to show the potential, and private investors, of implementing new decision making tools