Berlin-based investment and asset manager Capital Bay is expanding its business activities to include micro living. To this end, Capital Bay founded its own platform for micro living under the name CB Micro Living GmbH on 1 September 2018. Capital Bay was able to recruit the entire management team of UPARTMENTS Real Estate GmbH (formerly YOUNIQ Service GmbH) in order to operate the business segment with expertise and clout from the outset. From September 2018, a total of 15 employees will join the new Capital Bay subsidiary. Over the next three years, at least 10,000 flats are to be developed or acquired for Capital Bay's investment partners and transferred to the company's own integrated asset, property and facility management. A development in Berlin with 200 flats, the acquisition of a Germany-wide portfolio with 5,000 units and a management contract for 2,000 flats are already under review.
"Our strategy is to offer institutional clients and family offices integrated investment, asset and property management at the highest level across all types of use. By entering the Micro Living segment, we are systematically expanding our existing platforms for residential, care, office and retail property. With the new team, we can now offer our investment partners attractive investment opportunities in the Micro Living segment with expertise and experience right from the start," says company founder George Salden, explaining the strategic expansion of the business segment.
The former UPARTMENTS managing directors Heiko Henneberg and Alexander Kersting will take over the management of CB Micro Living GmbH. The division heads Martin Barwicki (Letting), Raik Bormann (Facility Management), Ariane Kubitz and Anne Vogel (Property Management) and Julia Fikar (Marketing) will also be moving on.
"We are delighted to have such an experienced team on board right from the start, with whom we can quickly launch and grow in the Micro Living segment. Demand for the product from the general public is extremely high. For institutional investors, investments in micro living property are increasingly becoming an integral part of their overall asset allocation. As a cross-use investment manager, we have to adapt to this," continues Salden.
According to a study conducted by the research company Bulwien Gesa in 2017, the transaction volume in the micro living segment has risen continuously since 2008. While flats worth around 100 million euros changed hands in 2008, properties worth around 500 million euros did so in 2013 and flats worth more than 1.2 billion euros were traded in 2016.
Heiko Henneberg, Managing Director of CB Micro Living GmbH: "Our goal is to become the market leader in Germany with at least 10,000 flats under management within a maximum of three years."
The number of single-person households in Germany is increasing significantly. In 1980, 30 per cent of households were single-person households, in 1990 around 35 per cent and in 2000 around 36 per cent [1]; by 2017, this figure had risen to 41.5 per cent [2], and the trend is rising [3]. There are many reasons for the increasing demand for smaller forms of housing. These include rising housing rents in metropolitan regions with limited housing budgets, the increase in autonomous lifestyles, young professionals bridging the gap between starting a career and starting a family, the increase in commuter jobs due to the spatial separation of work and family and the death of a spouse due to the population pyramid. And last but not least, students are a demand group for micro flats. In addition to an increase in the absolute number of students from Germany and abroad, the demand for temporary furnished flats is due to shorter study periods, university transfers and semesters abroad.
"As part of our product development, we will not follow a single track, but will take into account different requirements for flat living, different phases of life and the heterogeneous financial scope of future residents in our investments. This will enable us to react quickly to changing conditions and offer our investment partners a risk-diversified range of properties in the Micro Living segment," says Henneberg, explaining CapitalBay's Micro Living strategy.
[1] Source: Statis 2018 [2] Source: Federal Statistical Office, Development of private households until 2035 [3] Source: Federal Statistical Office, Development of private households until 2035
[2] Quelle: Statistisches Bundesamt, Entwicklung der Privathaushalte bis 2035
[3] Quelle: Statistisches Bundesamt, Entwicklung der Privathaushalte bis 2035