There is a shortage of hundreds of thousands of apartments in Germany, while many offices are empty. This is also because more and more people are working from home. Converted offices – is this the solution to the housing crisis?
After almost five months of searching, Lisa Voßkuhl has finally found her new dream apartment in the middle of Koblenz. Two rooms with a balcony, around 80 square meters, on the third floor. The rooms are bright and newly renovated. Her apartment is very centrally located and much closer to her employer, which saves her a lot of travel time every day, says the 33-year-old lawyer. “I was incredibly lucky,” the apartment search was a real odyssey.
Voßkuhl pays around 900 euros in rent per month. She now lives in a house that is more than 60 years old. It used to be a place for work, not living. It was a pure office building, but it was clearly showing its age and was in need of renovation.
Reconstruction costs several million
The idea was to turn sober offices into modern dream apartments, says Thomas Weiler from the Rhineland-Palatinate Construction Industry Association, which owns the building. Four years ago, the association had to decide what to do with the dilapidated office building: sell it or repurpose it and renovate it ourselves? “It was always clear to us because of the location, the short distance to the train station, the university, the old town, that we would take matters into our own hands and create high-quality living space here in Koblenz,” says Weiler.
But the effort was huge: the building had to be completely redesigned, gutted and rebuilt. The roof was raised and now houses chic penthouse apartments. The total cost of the renovation: 4.6 million euros. A total of 21 apartments were created – for singles, couples and families.
Could the Koblenz example in the fight against the housing crisis also set a precedent elsewhere? The housing shortage in Germany is likely to worsen further in the coming years. The federal government has so far clearly missed its self-imposed goal of building 400,000 new apartments annually. In 2023, there were only around 295,000 apartments. However, according to the Central Real Estate Association (ZIA), there is a shortage of 600,000 apartments across Germany this year alone.
Experts see potential of thousands of apartments
By converting vacant offices, thousands of apartments could be created in large cities – this is what the real estate consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) has calculated. Helge Scheunemann has examined the office vacancy rate in the seven largest German cities, including metropolises such as Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Cologne. The result: more than five million square meters of vacant office space (as of the end of 2023). He concludes that about 11,300 new homes could be built from this.
However, it is crucial that they are built in locations that are interesting for those looking for housing. In other words, they have good infrastructure, including good public transport connections, kindergartens, schools and shopping facilities in the area. Because office locations are not automatically suitable as residential locations, says Scheunemann.
Especially in cities like Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main, a large part of the current housing demand can be met through conversions, says the real estate expert. There is a particularly large amount of suitable office space there. Conversions are also more environmentally friendly, because a new building always means CO2 emissions. Overall, however, the conversion of offices has so far played a relatively small role, says Scheunemann, but the topic has “gained momentum” in recent years. For example, in Frankfurt the number of office conversions has more than doubled in the past 15 years.
Building regulations make it difficult
Converting unused offices into apartments seems sensible. But it is not easy. Experts say that conversions are expensive and time-consuming due to the increased construction costs. Then there are the legal requirements: if people like Lisa Voßkuhl want to live where people used to work, then that is a different use. “The moment they submit an application for a change of use, they must comply with the applicable standards and regulations and provide the relevant evidence,” explains architect Markus Konen.
This includes the rules for sound insulation, statics and accessibility. There are well over 3,000 standards and specifications in the German construction industry, and these have been increasing for years – something which architects like Markus Konen complain about. This is because it increases construction time and costs. And conversions are becoming more complicated, which could ultimately also have an impact on rental prices.
Real estate expert Helge Scheunemann assumes that around a fifth of the housing demand in the seven largest cities could be met by converting empty offices. However, he does not believe that offices will provide a way out of the housing crisis: “I would not call it a game changer. The potential that can be drawn from it is too small for that. But it is one building block among many to stimulate housing construction or to alleviate the housing shortage in the big cities,” says Scheunemann.