Many experts agreed: The corona crisis with rising unemployment and millions of people on short-time work will lead to a fall in prices for apartments and houses. But far from it. To Calculations by the Federal Statistical Office For example, buyers of single and two-family houses had to pay 7.4 percent more in the first Corona year than in 2019. In the fourth quarter alone, the authority found an average price increase of 8.1 percent. It was the strongest increase in a quarter since the final quarter of 2016 with an average of 8.4 percent at the time. And a new trend is emerging: real estate is not only becoming more expensive in metropolitan areas – prices are also rising in rural areas. A long period of good economic activity and rising wages, coupled with mortgage interest rates at historically low levels, has led to a significant increase in demand for real estate. In addition, professional investors also rely on so-called “concrete gold”. In view of the low interest rates, they usually lack lucrative investment alternatives. The Hamburg Gewos Institute for Urban, Regional and Housing Research identified another factor for the rising real estate prices: there is simply a lack of building land.
The corona pandemic has also changed the view of their own four walls for many. When the house or apartment mutated into an office and school for the whole family, many people’s desire for larger living space or outdoor space grew significantly, as the real estate industry has been able to observe. According to the statistical data, one-family and two-family houses became more expensive at the end of the year, especially in the seven largest cities: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf. House prices there rose by 12.1 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The Deutsche Bundesbank was also after Notice from ING Bank recently came to the conclusion that the trend towards excessive real estate prices, especially in major German cities, intensified somewhat in the past year. But the regions outside the cities have also become more attractive. This can also be seen in the data from the Federal Statistical Office. House buyers in sparsely populated rural counties had to pay 11 percent more in the fourth quarter than a year earlier.
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On the other hand, there was a real price explosion for apartments in some large cities. The prices for an existing condominium (80 square meters, 3 rooms, second floor) in ten major cities rose by more than ten percent. The front runner was food with a plus of 28 percent, as published quarterly Price compass of the real estate portal Immowelt emerges. For this purpose, the prices between the first quarters of 2020 and 2021 were compared. Here is an overview of the price increases and the square meter prices in selected major cities:
• Food: plus 28 percent – 2,218 euros per square meter,
• Hanover: plus 23 percent – 3,266 euros per square meter,
• Dresden: plus 20 percent – 2,743 euros per square meter,
• Dortmund: plus 18 percent – 2 256 euros per square meter,
• Düsseldorf: plus 17 percent – 4,457 euros per square meter,
• Nuremberg: plus 16 percent – 3 767 euros per square meter,
• Hamburg: plus 15 percent – 5 096 euros per square meter,
• Leipzig: plus 12 percent – € 2,283 per square meter,
• Cologne: plus 11 percent – 3 824 euros per square meter,
• Munich: plus 8 percent – 8,117 euros per square meter,
• Berlin: plus 7 percent – 3 856 euros per square meter,
• Frankfurt: plus 7 percent – 5,488 euros per square meter.
Condominiums also became more expensive outside the cities. The strongest price increase was in more densely populated rural districts with 8.9 percent. The growth was lowest in urban districts (5.7 percent).
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