For years, prices for apartments and houses have actually only known one direction: upwards. The buyers do not seem to be deterred by new record sums either, an evaluation by the credit broker Baufi 24 and the valuation company Sprengnetter suggests: According to this, the prices per square meter for condominiums rose by almost seven percent on the national average, for single-family houses it was even a little over seven percent – and within just half a year. The figures are based on around 120,000 sales between May and October this year compared to the previous six months, and other prices from real estate offers have also been included.
Accordingly, life is most expensive in Munich: Here, a square meter of apartment or house has now cost more than 10,000 euros each, a price increase of around 6.4 percent. The prices rose even more in Hamburg, by more than ten percent to a good 6100 euros. According to the evaluation, however, the price jumps were particularly large elsewhere: in East Germany. In Zwickau, living space was therefore almost 18 percent more expensive, in Cottbus and Rostock a good 17 percent more expensive each. The fact that regions with comparatively low prices are now becoming more expensive particularly quickly has to do with the corona pandemic, says Baufi-24 boss Tomas Peeters. “People are now working more flexibly and independently of where they work and they want more freedom.”
The prices are rising faster and faster
But it’s not just the virus that drives prices up. For years, residential properties have been getting more and more expensive faster and faster: Lag the plus according to data from the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (VDP) between 2011 and 2015 the average was 4.3 percent a year, from 2016 to 2020 it was already seven percent a year. In the first half of 2021, houses and apartments then rose by a nominal 9.6 percent. A study by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) in Cologne recently showed significant price increases in major German cities for the past year, on average by more than ten percent. The highest prices were again achieved in Munich: a condominium cost just under 580,000 euros on average, prices per square meter were not shown.
The development now evidently arouses the interest of many builders. In the first three quarters, a total of 5.4 percent more building permits were issued for apartments than in the previous year, as the Federal Statistical Office reported on Monday. Two-family houses in particular grew strongly with a plus of more than a quarter, but multi-family houses still made up by far the largest share. How quickly these apartments can be moved into, however, does not yet mean: Not all approved apartments will be built immediately – for example, because there is a lack of craftsmen and the orders cannot be processed so quickly.