Catella Residential Investment Management GmbH (CRIM) has sold two centrally located fully-let residential and student housing assets in Warsaw and Krakow in Poland to institutional investors in Austria and the Netherlands for more than €60m on behalf of Munich-headquartered AIFM platform Catella Real Estate AG (CREAG). Catella entered the Polish residential market in 2016 with the acquisition in Warsaw, followed by the purchase of “Trio Krakow” in Krakow in 2017. With 38 million inhabitants, Poland is the largest market in Central and Eastern Europe and faces a shortage of between 1.5 to 3 million rental apartments. Poland’s purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) market is also very attractive for investors as the country has some 1.2 million students and very few institutional student dormitories.
Pereca 11 residential is located in the centre of Warsaw, the capital and most densely populated city in Poland with 1.9 million inhabitants and a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million. It comprises 193 apartments of varying sizes, including studios as well as one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Most of them also feature a balcony.
The “Trio” project in Krakow, the second largest city in Poland, contains 139 student residences, 152 apartments and a car park which can accommodate 155 vehicles. It is located opposite to Cracow University’s economics faculty, within walking distance of the old city centre and central station. The complex was completed in December 2019.
Benjamin Rüther, Head of Fund Management at CRIM, said: “The Polish residential market is predominantly (around 80%) an owner-occupier market, but is shifting to a rental market, which will offer attractive investment opportunities for years to come. Both “Pereca 11” in Warsaw and “Trio Kraków” are fully let and are outperforming our business plans. After having achieved very attractive returns for our investors in recent years with both these properties, we now intend to focus on new investment opportunities."
