First sale under new regulations by housing association Viveste

According to C.A. van Harten LLM MRE MRICS, who supervised the selling transaction on behalf of Capital Value, ‘This transaction was the first to be completed under the new 2013-02 sales circular that became into effect on 1 October 2013. The circular, which applies to authorized institutions, allows associations to sell deregulated residential complexes and residential complexes which can be deregulated to investors at market value. There was considerable interest in these homes among private investors. Housing association complexes have often a considerable rent potential which can be realized after mutation. The offers on the complexes in Houten indicate that investors were taking this hidden value into account. The gross initial yield achieved was approximately 5.4%’.

In the words of F.J. Snoeks, Executive Director of Viveste, ‘The new regulations provide a good opportunity to sell potentially deregulated homes on a complex basis. The sale of these homes has made an important contribution to Viveste’s liquidity requirement. We are pleased with the achieved result. The homes were sold to a private investor with a good reputation. As the process was conducted in terms of data supply, pricing was open and objective. The approval procedure with the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations is also geared towards such sales and was completed very smoothly.’

Research conducted by Capital Value indicates that approximately 56% of the housing associations want to sell off residential complexes. The main reasons behind this are generating liquidity to make new investments in public housing possible and to acquire additional resources to fulfil financial obligations on for example the levy on lessors. Other reasons mentioned are the disappointing results of selling off individual units and changes in strategy with an focus on their core region.