Dhe number of newly built apartments in Germany rose slightly by 0.6 percent to 295,300 last year, despite higher prices and supply bottlenecks. However, the former goal of the federal government of 400,000 new apartments per year was clearly missed. The 2020 level of 306,400 apartments was also not reached, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday in Wiesbaden. In the current year, the construction industry expects at best 250,000 completed apartments.
“Especially in the metropolitan areas and their surroundings, the housing shortage is cemented,” said the general manager of the main association of the German construction industry, Tim-Oliver Müller. There is hardly any improvement in sight in 2024 either, and the number of completions is likely to continue to fall given the collapse in building permits.
Approvals in descent
Despite the demand for housing, the number of permits has been falling since last year. Because of the sharp rise in interest rates on loans and high building prices, many builders are holding back on projects or canceling them – from private house builders to large investors.
Many construction projects came to a standstill due to a lack of skilled workers and bottlenecks in the supply of building materials. At the end of 2022, the number of apartments that had been approved but had not yet been completed was 884,800. That was 38,400 more than at the end of 2021.
The average time from approval to completion has increased by around two months since global supply chains were disrupted by the corona pandemic – from 20 months in 2020 to 22 months in 2022, the Wiesbaden authority explained. The figures include both construction completions for new buildings and construction work on existing buildings.
There was a 1.5 percent decline in single-family homes. The number of new apartments in two-family houses, on the other hand, rose significantly by 14.1 percent to 23,000. 150,200 new apartments were created in apartment buildings, 1.5 percent more than in the previous year. A 14.5 percent drop was recorded in dormitories.
