It was Friedrich Schiller who once said: there is room in the smallest hut. With its focus on small-scale living, Cube Real Estate has turned the writer’s motto into a business model. Let’s ask founder and Managing Director Tilman Gartmeier: Do people really want to live in small spaces or is this form of housing born out of necessity?

“Small-scale living has always existed. Just think of the small student flat under the roof. The trend today is for so-called micro-apartments to be developed virtually en bloc. This means perfectly optimized, furnished living concepts in a small space for a specific target group. They are looking for precisely these flexible, optimized spaces. The new German term “young and urban professionals” refers to people who are temporarily drawn to the big cities for work or education. If there were no solution for this growing group in the form of small apartments, they would put additional pressure on the already strained regular housing market, for example for families. In an increasingly mobile society, small-scale housing is therefore creating its own segment to relieve the regular housing situation in large cities.”