Future plans

GoJerry Housing.

Building and letting student housing in the cities where GoJerry already has a counter. One tenant group, done properly: rooms for one, and rooms big enough for two, because a student couple should not have to pretend they live apart to find a flat.

Concept preview — no plot bought, no plans filed

Locations, unit sizes and the mix on this page are indicative. Nothing here is a listing or an offer to let. Every number needs an architect, a bank and the local Bauamt behind it before it means anything.

Build it, furnish it, then let it to students long term

Rooms for one

Compact studios Shared flats Furnished, one flat rate

Koblenz has two campuses and not enough small flats. A room you can move into with a suitcase, on a contract that runs per room rather than per household, is the gap.

Rooms for two

Couple studios One contract, two names Two desks

Student couples are the group nobody builds for. A shared flat wants single tenants and a family flat is too big and too dear, so couples end up squeezing into a room meant for one. A slightly larger studio fixes it.

What we would build

Two unit sizes and the shared parts that make a block worth living in rather than just worth renting.

For one

Compact studios

20–28 m² with its own shower room and a kitchen line. Furnished, so a first-semester move is a suitcase and a train ticket.

For one

Shared flats (WG)

Three or four bedrooms around one kitchen, let per room. Nobody has to find flatmates before they find a flat.

For two

Couple studios

30–40 m² — a double bed, a kitchen two people can stand in, and a bathroom that survives a shared morning. The size the market skips.

For two

One contract, two names

Couple studios are let to both partners jointly, with one rent and one deposit. No sub-letting fiction, and no second tenancy to argue about later.

Everyone

Step-free ground floor

Level access from the street, wide doors and a walk-in shower. A student with a broken leg or a wheelchair should not be a special case.

Everyone

Bikes and parcels

A locked bike room at ground level, a cellar box per room and a parcel locker in the entrance. Cheap to build, and the first thing people ask about.

Everyone

Laundry and courtyard

A shared laundry room and a small planted courtyard with seating, so the building has somewhere to be that is not a corridor.

Everyone

Heat pump, solar and fibre

New build to current efficiency standards, panels on the roof and fibre to every unit. On a student budget the second bill matters as much as the first.

Where we are looking

Housing follows the counters. The four cities with a GoJerry Sandwich branch are the four we already know how to work in, plus two satellites within reach of Koblenz. Nothing is under offer.

Koblenz — campus side

Focus: Students, one and two
Unit mix: Studios, couple studios, shared flats
Why here: Two campuses, thin small-flat supply, and the city we actually live in
GoJerry counter: Koblenz Altstadt
Status: Looking at plots

Köln — Altstadt and out

Focus: Students, one and two
Unit mix: Studios and shared flats
Why here: The biggest student city in the country — and the dearest land, so buying and converting beats building
GoJerry counter: Köln Altstadt
Status: Idea only

Trier — university side

Focus: Students, one and two
Unit mix: Studios and shared flats
Why here: A university and a Hochschule in a small city, which means a hard squeeze every October
GoJerry counter: Trier Innenstadt
Status: Idea only

Mannheim — beyond the Quadrate

Focus: Students, mostly couples
Unit mix: Couple studios and studios
Why here: A big university in the middle, and couples priced straight out of the Quadrate
GoJerry counter: Mannheim Quadrate
Status: Idea only

Vallendar — across the river

Focus: Students, one and two
Unit mix: Furnished studios
Why here: Business school, almost no purpose-built stock
GoJerry counter: Nearest: Koblenz Altstadt
Status: Idea only

Neuwied — cheaper ground

Focus: Students, mostly couples
Unit mix: Couple studios and shared flats
Why here: Land costs less and the Koblenz campuses are 20 minutes by train
GoJerry counter: Nearest: Koblenz Altstadt
Status: Idea only

How a project runs

Find the site A plot or a tired building within walking or tram distance of a campus. Location decides the rent long before the finishes do.
Feasibility and permit What the Bebauungsplan allows, how many units fit, and what the Bauamt will actually sign off. This stage kills most ideas, and it should.
Finance Bank debt against equity, plus whatever KfW or Land programme fits. Student-housing schemes come with their own occupancy rules — that is a decision, not a detail.
Build A general contractor with a fixed price beats chasing ten trades. Repeating one studio layout forty times is what makes the sums work.
Let and manage Let directly, on the semester cycle. Students move out by design, so the handover has to be boring, repeatable and finished inside a week.

Why this fits GoJerry

The shop is a daily business with thin margins and no assets behind it. Housing is the opposite: slow, capital-heavy and it holds its value. Together they balance each other. We already know these four cities street by street from running counters in them, and the students renting the studios are the same people walking past the shop at midnight. Couples are the quiet part of the case — they stay longer than single tenants, and churn is what eats a student building.

Slow money beside fast money Local knowledge already paid for One tenant group, done properly Built new, not flipped

Still open

Legal form. A property company sits apart from the shop for good reasons, and the tax treatment is not a detail.
Equity. Nothing moves without a deposit large enough for a bank to take the rest seriously.
Whether to take subsidised finance. Cheaper money, but occupancy rules and a rent cap for a fixed term.
Build or buy and refurbish. New build is cleaner to run; an existing building is faster to let. Köln probably has to be the second kind.
Who manages it. Self-managed until it is too big, then a Hausverwaltung — but the switch point needs deciding early.
Furnished lets turn over more and earn more. That is a staffing question, not a design one.
Couple studios are let to two people on one contract. What happens when they split up mid-semester is a contract question, and it needs answering before the first one is signed.
Which city first. Koblenz is the obvious one; Köln is the biggest and the dearest.