In big cities, living space is a coveted commodity. According to a new study, the real estate industry there is building past the need. The main victims are families and singles.
According to a study, singles and large families pay the highest square meter rents in Germany. A published analysis by the data provider Empirica Regio shows that the distance to other types of housing is particularly clear in large cities. According to this, the average rent for a one-room apartment in Germany was 9.84 euros per square meter in the past year. Apartments with five or more rooms were offered for EUR 8.78 per square meter. Two-room apartments, on the other hand, were cheaper at €8.72 per square meter, as were three-room apartments (8.41) and four-room apartments (8.42).
In metropolitan areas such as Munich, Hamburg and Berlin in particular, families and singles were asked to pay more than other tenants for the advertised rents examined. Apartments with five or more rooms were therefore available for a good 13.71 euros per square meter, one-room apartments for 13.50 euros. Both were above the average rent of EUR 12.79 per square meter. Apartments with two, three or four rooms were also cheaper here. According to the information, there were similar patterns in other large cities (B locations). In stagnation and shrinking regions, on the other hand, one- and two-room apartments were in demand and more expensive than other types of apartments.
“Our surveys suggest that it is in growth regions in particular that the highest square meter rents for single and family-friendly apartments are being asked,” said Jan Grade, Managing Director of Empirica Regio. “Too few family-friendly apartments are being built in big cities.” Rents for large apartments have also increased at an above-average rate. This drives young families, who are important for urban development, to the surrounding area.
According to the study, completions of apartments with four or more rooms, here including single and two-family houses, have fallen sharply in the metropolises: In a comparison of the five-year periods 2011 to 2015 and 2016 to 2020, they fell from an average of 8500 apartments per year to 6700. In addition, apartments with four or more rooms accounted for only 15 instead of 29 percent of all completions. At the same time, the number of completed apartments with one or two rooms increased two and a half times – from 7,400 to 19,100 annually and their share of all completions from 25 to 42 percent.
The real estate industry is often reacting to the growing number of households by building single apartments, Grade said. Data showed that the number of households with three or more people in the A and B cities has increased more rapidly in recent years than the number of small households. “The target group of families is in danger of being overlooked”. They need more housing.
