Debitos expands secondary debt marketplace to distressed commercial properties in Germany
- Debitos expands its platform to address rising institutional demand for distressed commercial properties
- The platform connects sellers with over 2,000 institutional investors seeking special situations investment opportunities
- Temporary fee waiver for distressed property listings until December 31, 2024.
Frankfurt – November 20, 2024: Debitos, Europe’s leading online marketplace for secondary debt transactions, is expanding its services to facilitate the sale of distressed commercial properties in Germany. This new offering enables direct single-asset and portfolio sales through the Debitos platform, addressing the growing institutional demand for special situations investment opportunities in German-speaking real estate markets.
Since its founding in Frankfurt in 2010, Debitos has facilitated credit transactions exceeding €10 billion across 16 countries, leveraging its international network of more than 2,000 institutional investors. The auction-based platform enables banks, funds, and corporations to execute transparent and efficient transactions, even in challenging market conditions.
Timur Peters, founder and CEO of Debitos, explains:
“We are seeing increased interest from international investors in special situations within the real estate sector across German-speaking real estate markets. At the same time, domestic buyer liquidity has contracted due to unfavourable macroeconomic conditions, including reduced activity from local lenders. This convergence is expected to drive a surge in distressed direct property sales over the next 12–18 months, aligning perfectly with the investment objectives of our extensive international investor network.”
Debitos’ platform is designed to navigate these market dynamics efficiently. Its invitation-only, secure transaction processing system ensures that sensitive B2B sales are conducted confidentially. Additionally, selected properties can be marketed via public real estate portals to maximise reach and achieve optimal sales outcomes.
Beyond distressed property sales, Debitos supports transactions involving loans for commercial and private real estate, secured and unsecured “Schuldscheine” for project financing, and insolvency claims against real estate developers. This breadth of services allows Debitos to meet the needs of a wide range of buyers and sellers.
Temporary Listing Fee Waiver
To support the market during these challenging times, Debitos is waiving its listing fees for distressed property sales until December 31, 2024. This incentive allows sellers to market their properties free of charge while gaining access to the platform’s extensive network of institutional investors.
As the market navigates reduced local liquidity and distress levels rise, Debitos remains a trusted resource for connecting buyers and sellers. Its experienced team combines deep market knowledge with targeted marketing strategies to help clients optimise their real estate portfolios quickly and effectively.
This expansion underscores Debitos’ role as a critical partner in bridging the gap between distressed property listings and international investor demand. By leveraging its proven platform and extensive network, Debitos continues to facilitate impactful solutions for German-speaking real estate markets.
The German Economy: structural challenges underpin stagnation
The German economy has faced two years of stagnation, driven by structural challenges that weigh heavily on its real estate sector:
- Demographics: An ageing population and skilled labour shortages strain construction, delaying housing supply while driving demand for senior living facilities.
- Energy Transition: Stricter regulations and rising energy costs necessitate expensive retrofitting, shifting investor preferences toward green-certified, energy-efficient properties. This is amplifying a bifurcation between best-in-class properties and others, particularly in logistics, residential, and office sectors.
- Legacy Industries and Stagnant Productivity: Dependence on traditional sectors like automotive and banking creates regional disparities in demand for industrial and office spaces, while Germany lags behind the US and China in high-tech innovation.
- Infrastructure Gaps: Persistent housing shortages and ageing infrastructure increase rents and development costs, exacerbating urban inequalities and eroding productivity.
- Geopolitical Risks: The war in Ukraine continues to disrupt supply chains, heightening risks for Germany’s export-reliant economy and logistics operators, while dampening cross-border real estate investment.
Germany narrowly avoided recession in Q3 2024, with GDP growing by 0.2% following a 0.1% decline in the prior quarter, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Inflation climbed to 2.4%, after a year-on-year rise in consumer prices of 1.8% in September. This modest rebound does little to resolve underlying structural challenges, while prolonged pricing uncertainty continues to weigh on domestic investor sentiment.
The German real estate market faces compounding pressures from a sluggish economy, still high borrowing costs, and a financing gap due to legacy of over-leveraged developers and property investors left over from the boom years. Transaction activity in Germany fell 11% in the first nine months of 2024 to €21 billion – 75% below the prior peak – with completed deals at its lowest since 2010, according to MSCI data. The office market is particularly challenged: office sales prices in the seven German A Cities have fallen by one-third since early 2022, returning to 2018 levels. This has complicated refinancing efforts for owners of maturing loans secured by these properties, now facing significantly higher interest rates.
Germany remains a focal point for market distress, as elevated interest rates put pressure on developers and investors who leveraged up during the boom years, further complicating refinancing efforts for maturing loans, particularly in the office sector. Nevertheless, the outlook for real estate transactions is gradually recovering. Falling interest rates and stabilising valuations are expected to support increased deal activity over the next 12-18 months, though a lag before these changes take full effect is anticipated.
About Debitos
Debitos is the leading loan transaction platform in Europe that enables banks, funds and companies to sell their credit exposures on the market through its open and transparent auction-based online transaction platform.
The platform leverages on the digitalization of the entire sale process and can reduce the expected disposal timing to 3-8 weeks compared to 3-6 months of the traditional process. Debitos was founded in Frankfurt in 2010 and has since successfully transacted more than 2.635m debts in 16 countries. By now, more than 2,000 investors from all over Europe have registered with Debitos.
Timur Peters is the founder of Debitos GmbH. He holds a diploma in finance and law. He has more than 10 years’ experience in the range of finance.
Before Founding Debitos Timur Peters was responsible in the distribution of Software for Banks and Financial Institutions for Comarch for the D/A/CH Region. Next to this he has worked for several years as a self employed Project Consultant in the area of Financing of Litigation cases, Peer2-Peer Credit Marketplaces and other online projects for financial institutions.
Website:
https://www.debitos.com
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