Property startup to expand to 50 cities

Innovative property startup Blueground aims to lease out some 50,000 furnished apartments in 50 cities around the world by 2023.

This is a particularly ambitious target given that the Greek company currently manages some 1,500 properties totaling 1.3 million square meters in nine cities: Athens, Dubai, Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.

In fact it has more than doubled the number of assets it manages since last year, when Blueground’s global portfolio contained only 700 properties.

Blueground’s activity is focused on renting and upgrading existing properties, signing rental contracts with the owners. It then sublets the properties to officials or enterprises or organizations for a medium to long period, depending on the case, securing a profit from the higher rent it charges compared to the amount it pays.

To achieve its current high occupancy rate of 95 percent, it has signed cooperation agreements with major groups such as banks, shipping consultants, embassies and multinationals such as Coca-Cola HBC, Ikea, Samsung etc.

In the last couple of years it has tripled its turnover on an annual basis while it aims to quadruple it in 2019.|