Poland's promising housing market

Those who follow us know that we are no strangers to the Polish real estate market. René Voortmeijer (CCO at Van der Vorm Vastgoed) has an inspired story; "In 2015, we made a tentative entry into this new market. We started as a private equity investor in the development of a portfolio of four shopping centers, which were all sold after completion. This gave us the opportunity to gain a lot of knowledge of the market and Poland in general.

We discovered that the housing market there is still very different, commercial residential rental (PRS) almost did not exist there. That was about 1% of the total housing rental stock, which is mainly dominated by corporations. But the growth of the Polish EU economy is impressive and so is the demand for quality rental housing. In 2017, we started purchasing a number of "test" apartments, which was an excellent learning experience. This gave us, among other things, insight into the Polish construction/development market, the level of completion and pricing, and we were able to build a team of local advisors, lawyers and tax specialists.

Since then, we have scaled up considerably. Today, the share of Polish properties is about 30% of our total housing portfolio. The properties are located in Krakow and Warsaw, the old and current capital. We see that the market in Poland is still very promising, with mostly young highly educated, career-makers and students who do not yet want to commit themselves permanently to a particular city. In addition, they mostly want a high quality of living, experience and flexibility rather than a long-term mortgage loan.

We now have a leading position in commercial housing rental in Poland. And we continue to invest and expand: we still see plenty of opportunities. We focus on strategic locations, close to the train station, university and city center. We will focus mainly on the top 10 cities in Poland.

Also, we see plenty of opportunities in collaborations. Also with equity partners. Together we can achieve even more and we are happy to share our knowledge in terms of the right structure of these investments. Whoever wants to know more about this is most welcome!"