Your empty building, as homes — and still yours
An empty office or commercial building in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt — or in Cologne, Mannheim, Stuttgart and Leipzig? Lease it to a housing co-operative for the long term. You keep the freehold; the building becomes homes, looked after by the people who live in it.
What we offer: a long leasehold
In Germany this is usually an Erbbaurecht. You — or your family — keep the land and the title. The co-operative takes the right to convert and use the building for a long, agreed term, and pays you a ground rent every year. When the term ends, the building comes back to you on the terms you agreed at the start.
Nothing is sold, so nothing has to be valued for a sale, and the asset stays in the family. How long the lease runs, what the ground rent is and what happens at the end are what we agree together. How leaseholds work across Europe.
And if you would like to live in the building yourself, you can — the form below lets you say so.
A steady ground rent
Paid every year for the whole term, instead of an empty floor that costs you rates, insurance and upkeep.
No conversion risk on you
A local partner plans, finances, converts and runs the building. Construction and running risks sit with them and the co-op, not with you.
A building that is used
Lived in and cared for by its residents, under rules that stop it ever being sold on for speculation.
Homes in your city
Long-term homes at cost, and furnished flats for people who come for a few months — a legacy you can point to.
Which buildings fit
Offices, shops, department stores and light-industrial buildings — empty now, mostly empty, or emptying within a couple of years. Roughly 2,500 to 20,000 m² suits a co-operative best, though smaller can work. It helps if a station is close, if daylight can reach the middle of each floor, and if the plan allows homes or could be changed to. Listed buildings are welcome; they take longer.
What one building could become
Every empty building on our reuse radars can be put through the conversion check — the same engine as our economic model. Here is one that stands empty today, owned by a public body.
Etkar-André-Straße 8, Berlin
Bezirksamt Marzahn-Hellersdorf — public body · checked empty October 2026Today: public building, about 11,220 m² over 5 storeys. The conversion check rates it a good candidate (97/100) and lays it out like this:
- long-term co-op homes
- 73
- furnished flats for members on the move
- 24
- people living there
- about 216
- shared rooms (kitchen, workshop, guest rooms)
- 898 m²
- ground-floor space for a shop, café or workshop
- 1,616 m²
- tonnes of CO₂ not emitted, against demolition and new build
- 3,871–4,095
A first look from open data, not a survey: structure, façade and condition are checked on site. We run the same check on your building before we meet — free, and only for you.
How it goes
A first conversation
Confidential, by phone or in person. You tell us about the building and what matters to you and your family; we tell you how the co-op works.
A conversion check of your building
Free and only for you: how many homes, what shared space, what it would take — from the plans and the data, before anyone visits.
A visit with a local partner
An architect and the co-op or developer who would lead the conversion look at the building with you.
Terms
The length of the lease, the ground rent, the condition of hand-over and what happens at the end — in writing, with your advisers.
Ask for a first conversation
Confidential. We never publish who owns a building in private hands — our maps do not name private owners, and nothing you send here is shown anywhere.
The rest of the pilot
Housing co-ops, impact-driven developers, architects and operators
Develop it with us
Lead the conversion locally; we bring the members, the model and the network.
Firms that build, equip, power or run buildings — and employers
Join as a company
Be a founding company and bid to supply the first building.
Impact investors, foundations, family offices and lenders
Register investor interest
Help us shape the vehicle the first building is financed through.
People who would live in, or belong to, a co-op home
Join the founding circle
Tell us your city and your terms — five minutes, no obligation.