Against the background of rising material costs and sharply rising interest rates, the number of building permits in Germany is falling. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the authorities gave the go-ahead for the construction of 31,688 apartments in May, down 2.1 percent on the previous year. According to this, a total of 155,347 building permits were issued from January to May, 1.6 percent less than in the same period of 2021. Single-family homes were primarily responsible for the decline, with the minus here being 17.8 percent in the first five months. Permits for two-family houses, on the other hand, increased by 2.1 percent, for multi-family houses it was even plus 9.1 percent. The traffic light coalition actually wants to ensure that 400,000 apartments are built each year, but construction companies are increasingly complaining about a lack of materials as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Steel, insulating materials, bricks: The supply bottlenecks are as great as they are rare and many materials are significantly more expensive than they were a year ago. This is probably one of the reasons why an unusually large number of projects are currently being cancelled.
Construction Industry – Fewer Permits – Economy
