The Serviced Apartment brand SMARTments business achieves record occupancy and earnings in the financial year 2022 and accelerates expansion

Berlin/Vienna, 27 March 2023. The serviced flat brand SMARTments business of project developer GBI achieved new record figures in the past year 2022 with an occupancy rate of 83.1 per cent and an operating profit in the high single-digit millions. "Such a successful balance sheet is all the more pleasing because we could not have expected it and in the first quarter of last year there were still significant restrictions due to pandemic conditions," says Burak Ünver, Managing Director SMARTments: "When we were subsequently able to operate freely again, the high demand made the record values for occupancy and earnings possible."
 

A total of eight locations of the SMARTments business brand with 1043 serviced flats are in operation in Germany and Austria. On average, guests stay for around one month. 76.3 per cent of them are long-stay customers who stay at least seven nights and a maximum of six months. "Because of this clear positioning, project workers, consultants, artists, freelancers but also weekend commuters and people starting a new job book us specifically," says Ünver: "This means that we are much more accepted by travellers as a long-stay brand than most competitors in the serviced flat segment."
 

"In addition to high occupancy, profits have also been optimised through consistent, data-based setting of overnight rates," Ünver adds. "Eight times a day, the algorithms we use check the rates for up to 25 flat types at the eight locations and adjust them if necessary," explains SMARTments Managing Director Daniel Zawe: "With this yielding, we react, for example, to peaks in local demand or - if this drops again - return to the base prices."  
 

The consistent digitalisation strategy, which enables very low personnel costs, also has a positive effect on earnings. When a booking is made, access and usage codes are sent to the guests' mobile phones. This way, they can also get into the room at night and, if desired, without personal contact. Even before the pandemic, SMARTments business relied on this system, for example through cooperations with technology companies such as hotelbird, apaleo and Straiv by Code2Order. "This relieves SMARTments staff of routine tasks, they can concentrate on individual care and fulfilling special wishes of the guests," explains Zawe: "This increases their satisfaction and is a decisive factor for the high occupancy rate."
 

Not only long-stay travellers show great interest in SMARTments. "Investor preference is also unmistakable," says Burak Ünver: "In 2022, we were able to sell two SMARTments properties that are currently under construction." The SMARTments in Borsigallee in Frankfurt was acquired by a special fund from Aberdeen Standard Investments. The building at Frankfurt Airport went - together with offices in the same property - to an open-ended special fund of HanseMerkur Grundvermögen AG. Investors were also impressed by the brand's resistance to crisis during the pandemic. "Thanks to the many long-stay guests, we had an occupancy rate of almost 50 per cent even in the depths of the crisis. A value significantly higher than that of the classic hotel industry. Our strategy with a majority of long-term stays has proven itself in this phase."
 

The good performance is an important basis for the GBI Group's decision to expand further with the SMARTments brand. It is not only the two GBI project developments in Frankfurt that are currently under construction. The first pure rental property independent of a parent company development will also be completed in 2024. In the Hamburg-Mitte district, 160 SMARTments business are being built as part of a neighbourhood development by the Hermann Friedrich Bruhn group of companies. "With the pure operator model, we can significantly accelerate expansion," says Ünver. "And in an ideal location with its proximity to Hamburg city centre and excellent public transport links."

The mixed-use approach practised in the Gateway Gardens airport quarter is another GBI trademark. Combining not only serviced flats and offices, but also, depending on demand, traditional and subsidised housing, daycare centres, senior or assisted living, care services, student housing, hotels, commercial units, social services (e.g. doctor, pharmacy) and local amenities. "This makes neighbourhoods livelier and more future-proof," Ünver emphasises: "And the economic efficiency also improves."

"SMARTments business" is a brand of the GBI Group and offers travellers fully furnished and fully equipped flats including their own kitchenette. Most business travellers use serviced flats for longer stays in a city, for example for project work or consulting mandates. But private travellers also use the brand's serviced flats - for example for city trips or to arrive in a foreign city and look for a new flat at their leisure. Eight houses of the "SMARTments business" brand with a total of 1043 flats in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Mannheim and Vienna are currently in operation. In addition, around 430 flats are under construction in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. The operation of serviced flats under the "SMARTments business" brand also takes place independently of real estate developments by the GBI Group. www.smartments-business.de

GBI is a real estate developer focusing on subsidised and privately financed flats, hotels, serviced flats, student flats and assisted living concepts under the SMARTments brand. Since its foundation in 2001, GBI has sold real estate projects in Germany and Austria with a volume of over 2.5 billion euros. GBI also operates serviced and student flats itself under the SMARTments brand. GBI Capital, which is part of the GBI Group, bundles the areas of investment management, fund and asset management and subsidy consulting. GBI's shareholder is the private real estate fund manager Henderson Park from Great Britain. http://www.gbi.ag