Vacancy management
A proactive approach to vacancy and the establishment of an appropriate vacancy register strengthens every municipality.
The situation
Vacant real estate is increasingly shaping the townscape, especially in rural areas. The owners often need support in the conversion or activation of the properties.
Our digital tools
With a vacancy detector, municipalities and business development agencies can be informed at an early stage about imminent vacancies and act proactively. The aREAL software solution enables the creation of a vacancy register.
Why municipalities should support their citizens in the event of vacancy
Residential and commercial vacancies should be combated proactively
If more and more buildings in a town fall empty or shops are empty more and more frequently in the city centre, this has an effect on the entire townscape and the external impact of a municipality. Due to demographic change, local authorities are struggling with this problem, especially in rural areas. But metropolitan regions also face a major challenge – they have to create living space. Vacant real estate is a great opportunity here.
If you start to deal with the background of vacancies, you will soon find that there are many different reasons for this. Examples are
- false values of the owner,
- disunited communities of heirs,
- tax aspects,
- no success with first marketing activities,
- no time to deal with marketing.
It is also becoming increasingly common for owners who have inherited a property to have themselves removed from the land register and the property thus fall to the state.
Ideally, vacancies should not arise in the first place. Rural areas in particular are dependent on immigration from outside and should therefore increasingly proactively market vacancies. This can be achieved, for example, with a municipal real estate portal of its own. Such a platform enables cities and municipalities to map local vacancies holistically in the digital market and thus be found in online searches for property offers on Google & Co. Here you will find a best practice example.
From the point of view of both the local government and the owner, it therefore makes sense to counteract the threat of vacancy.
With vacancy the owner should not be left alone.
An example
A landlord of a shop in the town centre receives the notice of termination from his tenant. Six months later the shop falls empty. The landlord places an advertisement in a real estate portal and pays a lot of money for it. Due to the demographic development in the town, however, the area is unattractive. The owner puts the advertisement up again, paints the shop windows white and hangs a sign on the door: “To let”.
This does not help either the owner or the municipality. It would be much more practical if the landlord could contact the local government immediately after receiving the notice of termination and receive support there within the framework of vacancy management. For example, a change of use can also be considered jointly. Perhaps, however, the economic development agency already knows an interested party for the property from preliminary talks.
Establishing a digital vacancy register is important
If municipalities have structural vacancies in the residential or commercial sector, active vacancy management also requires the establishment of a corresponding vacancy register.
This internal administration tool provides an overview of the vacancies in the residential and commercial areas in the town. This makes it an important tool for business development and city marketing as well as for urban planning or Baumat. However, the data collected also play a decisive role at the political level.
In addition to the pure location information of a vacant property, a great deal of other information is also relevant within the scope of the collection. The vacancy cadastre should contain, among other things, information on
- Year of construction,
- ownership structure,
- Building law,
- Restrictions,
- value concepts and
- former use
be detained. Ideally, images and documents should also be stored and an owner dialogue and statistics can be created.
A lot of data about the objects and also photos can be collected best on site. A mobile application can therefore also play a role in setting up a vacancy register.
Successful Vacancy Management with Immovative Software
aREAL
With our software solution aREAL municipalities can accompany their inner-local development holistically. The digital tool is used to set up a potential area database. This includes a vacancy register as well as a building gap and fallow land register. In addition to map-based visualization, the application consists of a real estate database, modern recording and administration masks, evaluation tools and an iPad application.
Vacancy detector
Our vacancy detector can be easily integrated into your own municipal real estate portal as well as into your municipal website. This gives owners the opportunity to contact the city administration with regard to the sale of their property.
Stay informed: Subscribe to our newsletter
Our immovativ newsletter provides you with regular information on internal development, vacancy management, location marketing and urban development. You will also receive information on our digital tools and products as well as on events.
