Berlin-focused listed residential investor Ado Properties plans to double the size of its portfolio by 2020, CEO and co-founder Rabin Savion has told PropertyEU in an interview at Expo Real in Munich.

Berlin-focused listed residential investor Ado Properties plans to double the size of its portfolio by 2020, CEO and co-founder Rabin Savion has told PropertyEU in an interview at Expo Real in Munich.

The company, which went public in July raising proceeds of around €200 mln, currently owns a portfolio of 15,500 housing units in the German capital. 'We aim to spend all the proceeds from the IPO and capital increase in the next 12 to 18 months,' Savion said.

Despite the recent introduction of a law to cap rents, German residential, particularly in Berlin, continues to offer a compelling investment opportunity, said Savion. 'Berlin is still going through a catch-up phase with rents about 20% below of the average of Germany’s top seven cities. In addition, our portfolio offers a lot of reversionary potential, given the big gap between the average rent in our portfolio (€5.71 per m2 per month) and the average for new rental agreements in the city (€8.21 per m2 per month).'

Savion admits, however, that the new rental cap is expected to have an impact on rental growth in the future. 'The like-for-like rental growth of our portfolio stood at 6.7% over the past few months but our future guideline is 5%, so we are expecting an impact of between 75-100 basis points from the new regulation.'

ADO Immobilien is backed by the Israeli-listed Ado Group, which retained a 40% stake in the company following the IPO.