We invest in rental apartments and innovate new housing services

VVO Group’s financial development continued to be good during the review period. We are continuing to make investments and are increasing the number of apartments we can offer in Finland’s growth centres. We are also innovating new housing services.

During the review period, we carried out development activities to make the renting of an apartment easier for the customer. In early October, we launched an online apartment rental service at www.lumo.fi/kotinyt. The Kotinyt.fi service is an entirely new way to rent an apartment immediately: the customer chooses a suitable Lumo rental apartment, pays the rent for the first month and can move in on the next weekday, for instance. The first couple of days already showed that the new apartment rental service is a great success among new customers.

We currently have 40,899 rental apartments, and a total of 1,199 privately financed Lumo apartments were under construction at the end of the period. Our goal is to start the construction of a minimum of 1,000 new apartments each year and to increase the number of apartments by acquiring old housing stock, too. During the review period, the Group invested EUR 159,2 million in new development, in acquiring old housing stock and in renovation.

In the next few years, our projects include, for instance, Lumo rental apartments in Jousenpuisto in the Tapiola district of Espoo when the City of Espoo decided to sell us a plot located above a metro station and a parking facility. With Hartela, we have signed an agreement on projects involving the construction of 205 apartments, with a total value exceeding EUR 41 million. These apartments will be built in addition to the more than EUR 100 million agreement published in autumn 2014.

The results of the annual customer satisfaction survey were finalised. According to the survey, tenant satisfaction has remained high. Tenants are satisfied with customer service, the location of apartments, improved property maintenance, online services, renovation opportunities, the Internet connection included in the rent and the small rental deposit, among other things.

Listening to our customers and developing our operations and new innovative services on the basis of the feedback are our key tasks.

Have a nice autumn!

Jani Nieminen
CEO