- Federal government offers low-interest loans for climate-friendly residential buildings
- Funds made available for 2023 are only sufficient for around 5,000 new apartments
- Minister Bern rider: “Housing construction companies need reliable funding prospects.”
After the surprising and chaotic stop of all KfW new construction programs for energy-efficient buildings at the beginning of last year and changing announcements about new programs, the federal government has now announced funding for climate-friendly residential buildings. According to the plans of the traffic light government, builders should receive a maximum subsidy of 150,000 euros per residential unit if they meet the energy standard of an efficiency house 40 with a sustainability certificate. The federal government is providing a total of 750 million euros for funding in the current year. Bavaria’s building minister Christian Bern rider welcomes the plans in principle, but criticizes the completely inadequate funding: “After the uncertain funding situation last year with the temporary suspension of funding, the worsening of the funding conditions and the increase in the minimum energy requirements, it was high time that the traffic light again provided a reliable funding perspective for which creates housing companies and private builders. However, the far too little funds that the federal government is taking to do this are by no means sufficient to even come close to defusing the tense situation on the housing market.”
According to the key points that have now become known, builders should receive a subsidy of up to 150,000 euros in the form of low-interest loans if their building project achieves at least the Efficiency House Standard 40 with the Sustainable Building Quality Seal (QNG). Climate-friendly residential buildings without the QNG seal can still be funded with up to 100,000 euros. The federal government is making a total of 750 million euros available for this in 2023 – far too little from the point of view of Minister Bernreiter: “With this budget, only 5,000 new apartments can be funded with the maximum amount. This means that the traffic light target of 400,000 new apartments per year, which has already been lost, cannot even begin to be achieved. It is also to be feared that the funding will soon be suspended again or the funding conditions will have to be worsened if the funds are expected to be used up soon. The chaos of last year could quickly repeat itself. Unfortunately, reliability looks very different,” says Bernreiter.
Bernreiter also sees numerous other points critically. The funding conditions were again announced very late, and the prospects for the medium-term further development of the funding are still completely unclear. In addition, the required energy requirements are disproportionate to the low level of funding, which consists only of an interest advantage. With an average apartment size of 100 square meters and assuming total costs of 5,000 euros per square meter, which are likely to be incurred with this standard, the loan would only correspond to 20 to 30 percent of the total costs. Previously, builders could still receive a repayment grant of up to five percent of the maximum loan amount of 120,000 euros in the KfW program 261 for new buildings. As a result of the planned elimination of this option, the subsidy conditions for many builders will even worsen, a situation that Bernreiter finds completely incomprehensible: “With these plans, the traffic light new construction goals will never be achieved. What we need now is significantly better funding, a clear longer-term perspective for the further development of energy-efficient new building subsidies and again a subsidy variant for private builders.” Minister Bernreiter is also in constant contact with all players in the Bavarian housing industry.
Press release on the publisher’s website
