Trei Real Estate GmbH (Trei), an international property company and developer of residential and retail real estate from Germany, increased its development volume by €185 million to €685 million in 2018, up from €500 million at the end of 2017. Of the €685 million, commercial property accounts for €105 million and residential for €580 million. In total, Trei currently develops around 2,400 residential units in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and the USA. Approximately two thirds of the development volume is to remain within the Trei-portfolio as a long-term hold, with the remaining third set to be sold after completion. At the end of 2018, Trei’s portfolio amounted to €1.1 billion (End of 2017: €1.0 billion). The occupancy rate remained high at 99.4 percent (2017: 99.4 percent). Trei manages a total of 384 portfolio properties, with almost 70 percent located in Poland (132 properties) and Germany (128 properties).
Pepijn Morshuis, CEO of Trei Real Estate, commented: “We significantly expanded our development activities in 2018. We took a key step on the residential side by entering the US market, where construction began on our first project in Charlotte, North Carolina. A second project is in the pipeline. At the same time, we have pressed ahead with our four housing developments in Berlin.” In the commercial segment, the focus was on building retail parks in Poland, where Trei opened three new retail parks in 2018 under the Vendo Park brand (Dabrowa Gornicza, Chodziez and Lodz). Another ten Vendo Parks in Poland are currently in planning or under construction.
Trei’s transaction volume last year was €161 million (2017: €113 million), of which €33 million purchases and €128 million sales. René Westerheider, Head of Transactions at Trei, commented: “On the acquisitions side, the transactions clearly focused on new plots for our developments. Particularly worth mentioning here are two purchases of land for residential developments in the USA and buying plots for additional retail parks in Poland. The €128 million sales volume relates mainly to the sale of a 14,100 sqm development plot in Munich. In addition, we have sold smaller or older properties that no longer fit our strategy.”
Looking ahead to 2019, Morshuis said that “our aim is to continue expanding the development volume in 2019. In the USA, we plan to launch additional residential developments besides the project in Charlotte that is already under construction. At the same time, we are looking to build residential properties in Poland and the Czech Republic. We expect to receive the first building permits in Poland soon. In Germany, new projects in various major cities are in the planing stage.”
Trei’s portfolio is still dominated by commercial use, with the amount of residential properties at 13 percent. Morshuis added: “The reason for the high percentage of commercial properties can be traced back to our roots in the Tengelmann Group. In the next three to five years, we want to increase the share of residential properties in our portfolio to 40 percent.”
