2023-08-20 18:50:18
Around half of all German households rent their homes, in large cities like Berlin even more than 80 percent. The development of rents, which is generally considered to be rapid, is of correspondingly great public interest. However, average rents in Germany have risen less than the general cost of living over the past 25 years. This is shown in the chart below, where both price indices are set at 100 for the year 2015. It can be seen that in the period from 1996 to 2015, residential rents rose even more slowly than general consumer prices and after 2015 at about the same rate. Nevertheless, one reads more and more often in the press about a “rent price explosion” or even “rent madness”. Why is that?
This different picture emerges in the rental market, particularly in big cities like Berlin and Munich, where the average rents per square meter advertised by landlords increased by more than a third between 2010 and 2017 , in Berlin even by two thirds (chart below, right part). The price increases are mainly due to rising demand, as more and more young people in particular are drawn to the big cities: This has to do with the labor market, cultural offerings and climate-oriented transport policy. The range of properties on offer could not be expanded to the same extent. Limited capacities in the construction industry, hesitant designation of new building land and increased construction costs are the main causes. Since the calculated living space per capita in Germany has grown by 17 percent since 2000 and amounted to 46.3 square meters in 2016, there is no absolute shortage of living space, but rather there is a gap between supply and demand in individual regional sub-markets.
#state #cap #rents