What is hidden behind the gray brick facade of the new Urban Soul building opposite Bonn's main train station is not visible from the outside. A narrow elevator leads directly into an apartment block that extends over two floors above a full floor. In the inner courtyard, there are ten doors in a row, behind each is a fully equipped apartment with TV, bed, sofa, desk, Wifi.

The smallest ones with one room and kitchen are 38 square meters and cost around 1,600 euros per month, while the larger ones with up to 60 square meters and a separate bedroom can be double that. There is a shared laundry room. So who stays here? "Medical tourists, trade fair visitors and all those who are new to the city," says landlord Axel Lankes, who also offers a boarding house in Düsseldorf under the name iboarding. They are all self-catering. He says that typically, the guest is an employee who has taken a new job in Bonn. "But pilots who are only here for a short time or people in a trial period for a new job are also among our guests." Lankes often works with relocation companies that specialize in helping people find their footing in new cities.

Some might call the business model profiteering. But behind it is an economic development that also has to do with the housing shortage in Bonn. So-called boarding houses are increasingly in demand because they are not as expensive as hotels. "It's an in-between solution," says Lankes, who takes on the risk of having low occupancy. Regular apartments are less expensive to rent, but most landlords will not rent out their apartments for only a month or two. The housing provider iboarding in Urban Soul is part of the overall concept of the building, which was constructed a few years ago. In the immediate vicinity is the Motel One with a room rate of 100 euros per night. That is considered cheap. iboarding charges just half that in the lowest price range, and the minimum rental period is one month. Depending on where you book the apartment, the monthly rent varies by several hundred euros. For example, the Dutch booking platform Housing Anywhere, which specializes in short-term rentals, charges an agency fee of just under 20 percent.

When asked, the city of Bonn explains that they do not have an overview of how many boarding houses there are in Bonn. Are they problematic for the general housing market? "Provided that the mini-apartments in question have not been certified under building regulations as living space for permanent residential use, no normal living space is lost to the housing market." Critics say: People could also live in the apartments long-term. The more of these lucrative short-term apartments there are, the fewer that are available on the normal housing market - a spiral that keeps getting worse.

Bonn Conference Center Management GmbH, which is owned by the city, recognized the trend of boarding houses six years ago. At that time, the old parliament buildings on Heussallee were converted into small apartments. A total of 46, as Managing Director Michael Kleine-Hartlage explains. "We use them primarily to house people in connection with the WCCB," he says. In retrospect, he says, the conversion was a good decision, especially in the neighborhood of the UN. "We have a lot of repeat customers and are practically full." Rates start at around 90 euros per night, depending on occupancy. For longer-term stays, it can be cheaper. Currently, only half of the apartments are available for business because the other half is used by the city of Bonn to house refugees.

Michael Schlößer, chairman of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) in Bonn, has been running BonnOx, a mixture of boarding house and hotel, for many years. Here, prices start at around 40 euros per night. "With us, you can add services as you wish, such as breakfast," he says. He says most of their guests are people starting out with corporations - the apartment hunters who can't find anything in the tight market. "They first come alone and then look for something for the whole family." That's followed by project workers who like to stay for three months. "But there are also commuters who rent for even longer." For tax reasons, no one is allowed to stay longer than six months, in which case it's considered a long-term lease.

Boarding business is growing more and more

The boarding business is a growing sector, he said. Whereas so-called service apartments in hotels accounted for about three percent before the pandemic, the figure is expected to rise to around ten percent by 2030. According to Schlößer, they promise a good basic occupancy rate. However, with normal hotel rooms, which are often booked at shorter notice and for a few days, higher rates can be charged. In weaker months such as December or January, as well as July and August, boarding guests are important customers, in the busy month of March or during trade fairs more of a hindrance, he said. "Then we can also get double the rates from hotel guests.”

Orig. text: Nicolas ottersbach

Translation: ck