A bed, a table, a chair, plus a bathroom and a kitchenette: many students have enough Spartan equipment for their quarters.

These expectations make it easier for providers of small student apartments to rent: They only have to set up apartments near universities once, they have a relatively low fluctuation among students and are therefore easy to plan.

An apartment block in the Bockenheim district of Frankfurt shows that Corona has destroyed these strategies as well, like so many other strategies, at least temporarily.

The building at Ederstrasse 14, built in 2010, is located near the Goethe University and is popular with students - usually.

Daniel Schleidt

Deputy coordinator of the business editorial department in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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    In recent months, however, due to the pandemic and the associated travel restrictions and university closings, the demand for apartments for students has deteriorated significantly, as Martin Henke knows.

    Henke works for the property management company Talyo, which manages and rents real estate and has also been responsible for the house in Ederstrasse with its 185 residential units since the beginning of the year.

    “The interest in student apartments has decreased significantly in the past few months, of course.” The vacancy rate of individual apartments, which are between 20 and 25 square meters in the house, is usually zero, but recently no new ones have been found for many of these furnished rooms Tenant.

    What is actually a rarity in Frankfurt, where living space has been extremely scarce for years, has become the norm in many places since the outbreak of the pandemic: Apartments that are mainly rented temporarily to students or to skilled workers from abroad, so-called expats, stood empty. "Foreign students could not come, German students probably lived mostly in the nursery at home in the end," suspects Henke.

    Flexibility is therefore required, and this is where Daniel Ishikawa comes in.

    The entrepreneur from Rodgau operates what is known as furniture leasing with his company Light Living, which means that he rents furniture such as sofas, cupboards and tables, but also other inventory that is needed in apartments: towels, coffee machines, cutlery and bed linen.

    The Light Living concept is ideal for apartments that have to be converted at short notice, as in Ederstrasse, because the target group of students is currently unavailable.

    Furniture for your own taste

    Because normally, as the landlord, Talyo would have to set up the apartments with good luck and hope that tenants would be found for them, be they commuters or young couples. But because, for example, these two target groups show how different the requirements for apartments can be, Ishikawa and his company are the right partner for real estate managers. With Light Living, the customer, who is always the tenant, can put together the furniture according to his own taste and for his own purpose and also for the appropriate duration.

    For Daniel Ishikawa, a lot has changed as a result of Corona, as he says.

    Suddenly, many companies needed furniture to set up a home office space for their employees.

    Since then, swivel chairs, desks, acoustic walls and mobile pedestals have also been ordered increasingly.

    The original core business, however, is the rental of home furnishings, from sofas to box spring beds to bedside lamps.

    Iron and toaster for rent

    A small living room like in Frankfurter Ederstraße can be furnished with a double bed plus a large wardrobe, but also with a single bed and a desk. "We are seeing the need for flexible use of rental apartments increasing," says Ishikawa, who also rents blankets, vases, clotheslines, televisions, irons, toasters and even children's toys. The offer helps landlords to react quickly, he says, "because anything is better than a vacancy".

    Martin Henke hopes that students will return to the apartments soon. In principle, however, he also assumes that flexibility will become more important when renting out apartments. Daniel Ishikawa will be happy to hear that. The entrepreneur hopes that using furniture will prevail over owning even more. "Lots of people don't want to be tied to furniture for long," says Ishikawa. With leasing it is even possible to furnish one's apartment differently in winter than in summer.