Status: 11/17/2022 11:41 am
Increasing rental prices, too few new buildings: In many respects, living space in Germany is becoming tight. This is now also confirmed by the Federal Statistical Office: around 8.6 million people live in too small a living space.
Around 8.6 million people in Germany have too little living space. Last year, 10.5 percent of the population lived in apartments that are considered overcrowded according to the European definition, according to the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden.
The proportion among single parents is particularly high at 28.4 percent. For families with three or more children, the figure is even 30.7 percent. But more than every tenth single person often lives in apartments that are too small.
It is particularly cramped in German cities, where around one in six people live in too little space. In rural areas, on the other hand, it is only every twentieth person.
Germany better than EU average
The figures are the result of a study at European level. An apartment is considered too small if it has too few rooms. The living space itself was not taken into account for the current survey.
For example, the presence of a living room and a bedroom is considered sufficient for a one-person household.
According to the survey, a family with two children between the ages of 12 and 17 and of different sexes would need at least four rooms – a living room, a master bedroom and two children’s rooms.
For those who have been looking for a larger apartment in the Federal Republic for a long time, it is probably only small consolation: In a European comparison, Germany is still in a relatively good position with a rate of one tenth.
The EU average is around 17 percent, led by Latvia with 41.3 percent overcrowding and Romania with 41 percent. According to the statistics, people in Malta and Cyprus live the least cramped with 2.9 and 2.3 percent.
Aggressive war and expensive materials
As a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the situation on the German housing market has deteriorated further this year. A million people have fled to Germany before the war so far, many of them are still holding out in emergency shelters, some of which are in town halls.
The federal government is planning 400,000 new apartments per year – despite the increased material costs and the shortage of personnel in the construction industry. 100,000 of these should be affordable social housing.
The cost of living space in Germany is also high in an EU comparison. Almost one Quarter of disposable income is spent on housing on average, in the EU it is only 19 percent. The proportion of those who are overburdened with housing costs has recently also increased in Germany.