Nery Alaev writes about Vienna’s pied-a-terre market.
Investors are targeting the pied-a-terre market thanks to attractive yields on offer in key up-and-coming districts, according to a report from Knight Frank covered in Property Investor Today.
I’ve decide to conclude and summarise but first, what is a pied-a-terre?
A pied-a-terre in London.
New market
By its brief definition on Wikipedia, a pied-a-terre is a:
“…small living unit usually located in a large city some distance away from an individual’s primary residence. It may be an apartment, flat, or condominium.
The term pied-à-terre implies usage as a temporary second residence (but not a vacation home), either for part of the year or part of the work week, by a reasonably wealthy person.”
Thanks to an increase of wealthy residents moving to the Austrian capital in the last ten years, there has been increased attention from real estate investors in Vienna, indicated by the new interest in pied-a-terre properties.
Moving away from the pied-a-terre market, Vienna’s strength is further bolstered by strong fundamentals. For instance, between 2015 and 2017 more than 44,000 new households are forecast to be created and over 30,000 apartments are expected to be completed also.
This kind of growth is needed for the thriving city, the metropolitan area of which accounts for a third of Austria’s entire population.
Another positive factor for investors is the low rates of ownership in the city – a boon for potential landlords – on top of the high numbers of tourists (over 14m overnight stays and 6.6m visitors).
Quality of life
Part of the reason for such an interest in the city from investors and new residents alike is that Vienna’s quality of life is very high. Vindicating this, Kate Everett-Allen of Knight Frank International Residential Research, says:
“Vienna consistently ranks highly for its quality of life and can compete with London and New York when it comes to museums, theatres and opera but where it excels is in terms of anonymity, few global cities allow wealthy residents to live with an unrivalled level of privacy and security.”
It appears that these factors, when combined together, are clearly attractive to investors. I myself have several investments in the city which you can learn more about here and here.
Nery Alaev
Nery Alaev is the current Director of ESN Investments GmbH, which engages in acquisition and development of commercial and residential property in Germany and Austria.