Skift Take
The CEO of limehome explains the forces that contribute to why Germany is a solid market for growth and expansion right now.
It’s not very often that I receive pitches that read a short-term rental operator’s portfolio grew 40% in the first half of the year. And so when I learned that limehome added over 1,000 properties to its portfolio this year alone, my eyebrow raised itself.
Here are some numbers: The Munich-based company that operates in seven countries in Europe, with Germany being its main market, has 4,500 units in its portfolio — 1,000 of which were added this year alone. And the company is on track to end the year with 5,500 units.
A lot of these are new units and new builds — at a time when new construction in Europe is both taking longer and is more expensive, albeit more energy efficient (credit where due) compared to the U.S. — by some accounts, up to 50% more expensive. So what are these new builds limehome is getting done at flash-speed.
CEO Josef Vollmayr explained that a lot of them are office conversions. “We are getting squeezed into mixed-use buildings. They are not building an entire building for us, but rather a floor