Please keep asking questions in 2011.

All the Best.
Alexander Korte

Diamona & Harnisch bought Kastanienallee 63 in Berlin Mitte in Q1-2010
today the advertising on the plot was installed.

www.kastanienallee63.com (coming soon)

The company is envolved in some of the hottest luxury residential development in Berlin:

Choriner Höfe in Berlin-Mitte
Lychener Straße 53 in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg
Fichtenberg Carré
Diplomatenpark in Berlin Tiergarten

Email me if you want to buy, sell or develop residential buildings in Berlin.

I bookmarked this in del.ico.us a day after it was published, and forgot about it, that is why I share this so late with you.

Nevertheless the good news is this article is still more than true even 6 month after it was published and reflects my experience with the market.

Berlin is coming into balance
After a long period of excess supply, house prices now rising steadily.

English Version (translated by Google Language Tools).

German version

Source: Die Welt
Author: Stephanie Creutz
Published: 25. Oktober 2009

400.000 visitors of 3.4 mio berlin visitor are families (mom, dad and kid(s)) therefore the suplly with kidfriendly hotels in Berlin is not very good. A wellknown Berlin based Hotelprojectdevelopment company wip Willmeroth Projektentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH wants to change this. They just have aquired Berlins biggest existing indoor pool form Liegenschaftsfond Berlin, a real estate asset management company owned by the municipality.
The 35.000sqm site is located at Buschkrugallee in Berlin-Britz (a subdistrict of Neukoelln). The developemnt includes a 3 to 4star hotel and othe facilities like a outdoor steamroom area.

The idea behind the holiday park is to attract loacl families as well as visiting families (tourists).

Not the standard hotel pproject idea so, and the location formerly known as “Blub” is well kown by the Berliners.

Berlin-Mitte and especially every location below Torstrasse is gaining momentum while locals as well as international buyers demand drive rental prices to so far unexpected hights.

Especially big flats with miore than 3 rooms, as well as flats offering barrier-free features are in high demand. TLG Immobilien a big real estate investor (strong in East Germany) just finished an heritage building in Max-Beer-Str. 3. The 4 vacant flats were advertised for 4 days, 40 people showed up at open house and 30 people actually showed interest in renting.

Astonishing enough the flats had no balcony and no elevator, but are nicely restorated.
Nevertheless the formerly named 10 Euro frontier even for good located well equipped flats seem to vanish. In this case TLG asked and got 10 Euro per sqm cold rent.

A new builidng in Ackerstr. is rented for EUR 13 and the renter had to bring his own kitchen.
At Elisabethkirche asking price is EUR 15, and I am sure they will get it.

main reason for Berlin top restaurant shiro-i-shiro to close doors are rental prices in there very nice berlin location at the corner of Münzstr. and Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. in Berlin Mitte.

Read articel in German from gourmet report.

According to Thomas Daily and AFIRE Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate Germany is (together with switzerland) in second place. Details here.

A 16.000m² loft space called “Kaufhaus für Kreative” in the center of “turkish” Kreuzberg is another weak signal that Kreuzberg is up and coming among developers and others. Especially the region close to river spree seems to be one new focus for Berlin developers. Just a question of time when the first residential development will pop up there.

IVG Development announced yesterday the start of a new development close to Hackescher Markt and the Museums Island in the city center of Berlin (East). The project called “Hackesches Quartier” with rental floor space of 36,600 square meters of whom 80 per cent has been marketed before the start of the construction. Main renter of the 24.850 m² office space are Berlin based Gas supplier GASAG Berliner Gaswerke AG (8.500 m²), and Berlin based advertising and creative agency Scholz & Friends AG (8.000 m²). Buyer of the 145 Serviced Apartments with luxury standard (7.680 m²) is Hotel operator Adina Europe Ltd., a leading operator of serviced apartments in Europe and Australia all ready serving the Berlin market.

According to an article about East German property “Fast vergessene Perlen im Osten” from Heiko Metzger in Financial Times Deutschland (Print issue 03.01.2008) some local markets in East Germany are more than worth a look.

Take Jena e.g. the vacancy rate at 2.2% is lower than in most West German cities.

Potsdam e.g. has the highest rate of people working in the service industry troughout Germany, while in addition having the youngest population at all.

It seems that foreigners are the first who discoverd this opportunity. Especially West Germans tend not to invest in East German property. This is based on a couple of prejudices about “the East” as well as on experience at the end of the ninties when the mainly high-income-investors put their money, driven by a heavy tax-refunds into East German Building Developments.

A couple of investments were just spend based on the tax-refund while the builidng itself didn’t even had renters.