Finding a shared room can be more difficult for students than studying for exams. They scroll through offers on the Internet that they can’t afford anyway. They ask friends and post their concerns on social media; they have to follow every lead – and that takes time. Because what they are looking for is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve: an affordable room in a shared apartment.
Since the summer semester of 2019, rents have risen by 21 percent nationwide and by as much as 26 percent in university cities. This is reported by the Berlin consulting and research institute Empirica, which evaluates regional databases to examine the housing and real estate markets. At the beginning of each semester, the company creates an overview of the rental prices for rooms in a shared apartment, based on rental advertisements. The result: a room in a shared apartment costs 485 euros per month in the current semester.
For shared apartments, landlords can adjust the price with each new move-in
Shared rooms are particularly expensive in big cities. Anyone studying in Berlin or Hamburg in the summer semester pays an average of 598 euros. The only place where life is more expensive is Munich, the most expensive shared apartment city. The average rent for an unfurnished room there is 700 euros. One way to live cheaply in Munich is to go to a dorm through the Studentenwerk in Munich – there are currently 9,233 people on the waiting list.
Compared to this, Leipzig can almost seem cheap: a shared room there costs 425 euros. “Berlin is expensive, Leipzig is now popular, the city had low rents,” says Christian Oberst from the German Economic Institute. But since 2019, prices in Leipzig for shared rooms have risen by 52 percent. Nuremberg, Braunschweig and Siegen are the cheapest.
In general, the housing market is currently tense. Interest rates are high and construction prices are rising. “People who could buy their own home stay in rental apartments,” says Oberst. At the same time, fewer new buildings are being built. Because demand for rental apartments is higher, prices are rising.
Shared apartments have an advantage for landlords: they can adjust the rents with each new move-in. “There are often tenant changes in student apartments, which is work for the landlord, but he can generally increase the rent for every new contract,” says Oberst. For someone who has been living in an apartment for ten years, this is not so easy. The prices can only be adjusted to the rent index.
The search for a room is changing
So finding a room becomes more complicated. The research institute was able to evaluate advertisements in fewer and fewer university cities. Nationwide, only 35 university cities still provide a relevant number of shared apartment advertisements. “Apparently the market for shared apartments is frozen,” concludes Emperica. At least offers are increasingly rarely advertised online.
Oberst also observes this development: “If you have a large circle of friends, you get a room more quickly.” The informal market is increasing. This should come as no surprise to students looking for a room. If in doubt, you can also ask in the lecture hall or in the queue at the club: Does anyone here know someone who knows someone who can rent me a cheap room in a shared apartment?