Catella Asset Management Iberia (CAMI) has acquired 171 social housing units in Madrid, Villaverde, for €27 mln on behalf of the Catella European Residential Fund (CER I).
The latest investment in Villaverde, the first for the CER I Fund in Spain, is a turnkey sale and purchase private sales agreement. The acquisition encompasses four new-built buildings with 171 apartments in one, two and three-bedroom formats, with the same number of parking spaces and storage rooms, common green areas and facilities such as a swimming pool and playground.
CAMI acted as asset manager for the deal, and will asset-manage the property going forward.
'Catella is poised for a major expansion in its Spanish residential investment portfolio over the next six months, underpinned by the rental market’s solid fundamentals,' said Eduardo Guardiola, director and partner of CAMI.
'Younger people in particular are finding it increasingly unaffordable to own their own properties and are generally more flexible and mobile in being prepared to move to different cities for work than the previous generation. We anticipate that this strong demand for rental homes will increasingly attract larger investors and managers and lead to greater consolidation and professionalism in the fragmented Spanish residential investment market,' Guardiola added.
CAMI said it also plans to complete the purchase of 191 rental homes of one, two, three bedrooms in Valdemoro, in the Madrid metropolitan area, next to the Hospital Universitario Infanta Elena, in the first quarter of 2020.
Furthermore, the manager said it was advanced negotiations with residential property owners and developers to acquire a further 600 homes, which would bring the Spanish portfolio up to a total of 1,600 rental units within six months.
The CER I fund is managed by Berlin-based Catella Residential IM, which together with the Iberian business CAMI are part of the Catella pan-European residential investment platform, with total assets under management of €3.4 bn across nine countries.
