Borkwalde is known as "Sweden in Germany". All the houses are built in the Swedish style. Until 1902 there were only forests and meadows and the railway from Berlin to Belzig and Dessau. In 1902 2 rich men from Berlin, who used the area to hunt, built today's railway station to make it easier to travel - it is only 45 minutes by train from Berlin. There followed a gradual build up of tourism to the area. People started to build houses, initially for weekend and holiday use and then people started to live there. Borkwalde is small. Today the population is 1544 of which only 82 are unemployed. If you consider the total population this portfolio represents a considerable % of the town.

The price is very low. New builds here are expensive by German standards - above 2000 EUR per sqm. But there is a reason for the low price.

At the beginning of the 1990s the opening of the borders of central and eastern Europe triggered a large scale migration to Germany and a large scale migration from East to West Germany. Housing requirements increased in Germany as a whole and in urban areas in particular. Federal government policy reacted to these changes by increasing the promotion of housing construction and in particular through tax incentives. Borkwalde was a commune which supported this and contributed to it itself. Borkwalde is typical of the new housing developments of the 90s in that it is a combination of publicly promoted and privately financed properties.

These blocks were funded largely by goverment grants. In exchange for the grants rents will remain the same for 15-20 years after the building i.e. until 2009 or 2014 (we do not have the exact detail yet). In addition one has to apply to live here. Preference is given to people on lower incomes or with families. People on higher incomes are not permitted to live in these blocks.

But for a very low price you get very well designed blocks in a sought after location. Lessons were learned from previous post war and 70s projects. The intention here was to create an area where people would want to live and to improve employment and public facilities. We have not seen the low level specification of these properties but it is likely they have been built according to the general guidelines of the 90s project i.e. low energy construction methods, coupled heat and electricity generation in the proximity of the consumers, renewable energies, decentralised sewage treatment and waste recycling. An important feature of the new developments (like Borkwalde) is that they have relatively compact buildings and so restrict the growth of the area making it a more pleasant place to live in.

One thing to note here is that all these blocks are wood clad and wood requires maintenance. Aproximately every 5 or 6 years all the blocks need re-painting. This costs approx 130,000 EUR and this is the 1st task a new owner will do as ithas not been done for more than 5 years. This has been factored into the purchase price.