Luka is nine, Matea seven and Klara four years old. The three of them share a children’s room, and when you ask them what they want, at least the two older ones agree: “A room of their own!” The children live with their parents Andrea and Paul M. in a three-room apartment in Riem. The parents also say: “We need more space.” That’s why they’re here this Sunday morning, at the real estate fair in the Small Olympic Hall. The family prefers to keep their last name to themselves, like other families who are looking for a new home at the fair.
Dawonia is also one of the exhibitors: it has former rental apartments of the former state GBW on offer.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
About 50 exhibitors are represented. Among them are large real estate companies such as Baywobau or Dawonia, which advertises condominiums in Schwabing at their stand. They are former GBW rental apartments that the Free State sold ten years ago – now they are on the purchase market, starting at 620,000 euros for 55 square meters on the ground floor. A 70 square meter luxury penthouse on the newly added top floor is available for 1.3 million euros. But you can also look far beyond the Munich horizon at this trade fair: At another stand, a company advertises villas as a capital investment in Antalya, Turkey.
It’s not overcrowded, at many stands there are more advisors and sellers than potential real estate buyers. This obviously reflects the market, demand has recently fallen significantly. According to the brokers’ association, the prices for apartments and houses have fallen by up to ten percent within six months – a result of the combination of rising interest rates for financing, the high inflation rate and the massive increase in costs for building materials and energy.
When interest rates were low, it was still possible to finance a property worth one million euros with 30,000 euros per year, says broker Christian Moosbauer at the Aigner Immobilien stand. 2,500 euros a month, a very well-earning family was able to manage that. Now, with four percent interest and two percent repayment, you need 5,000 euros a month. “That separates the wheat from the chaff,” as Moosbauer puts it. “People don’t smash your door anymore,” after all, their budget hasn’t doubled.
So he and his colleagues would have to lower the prices, “there is no other way”. It used to take a maximum of three months for him to sell a property. Now there is no longer an order that is completed in less than half a year. Most willing-to-sell owners that Moosbauer deals with would realize that they can’t ask for as much as they used to; only some did not want to admit it and did not lower the price. For such advertisements, however, “I don’t even have any inquiries.”
The prices in Munich are a disaster for families, says mother Andrea, who would like more space for herself, her husband and the three children.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Lower prices? That doesn’t necessarily happen to the M. family on their tour of the Small Olympic Hall. They compare the costs with those they had to pay when they bought their apartment twelve years ago. “It’s unbelievable how prices have risen,” says Andrea M. “A disaster for families with children, it’s actually not affordable.”
Renting, however, is out of the question for her, “we couldn’t afford a five-room apartment.” According to the recently published rent index, Munich residents have to pay 21 percent more than two years ago. So the Ms keep looking around for a property to buy. They’ve been doing this for a few years, albeit “not as intensively” as Andrea M. says. They would like to move to a community in the district where it is a bit more rural and where the children have more space to play.
The P. family has also been thinking about buying a house for a long time. “Well before Corona” they started looking around, says mother Laura, but “never with great ambition”. Her husband Jochen is just having a conversation at one of the stands, while she makes sure that the two children, five and almost two years old, don’t escape.
They are still renting in Schwabing, they could imagine moving to the outskirts and commuting – or even buying something in Munich. But only if the “overall package” is right, as Laura P. says. At the moment, real estate in the region is simply overpriced. If a semi-detached house is offered for 1.5 million euros, it is “not worth it in any way”. And if there is no coherent overall package? Then the thought comes up, “whether you’ll stay in Munich at all,” says her husband.