The pandemic has increased interest in owning a holiday home. This is the result of a representative survey by the opinion research institute Civey. The chance of a safe break, more or less independent of corona restrictions, has therefore given rise to the desire of many people for a beach house or a chalet in the Alps.
According to the study, the rising costs of construction or purchase and even inflation have apparently only dissuaded a few interested parties from the idea. The client for the survey is the Myne platform, which specializes in holiday home fractional ownership. The company recently announced that it had raised EUR 23.5 million from various investors.
Of the 2,500 Germans aged 18 and over surveyed, almost 40 percent would like to own a holiday home. However, that is slightly less than the 45 percent who said they would like to do so a year ago.
The survey also revealed that the desire is particularly great among the younger generations. While a good half of those under 50 would like to have their own holiday home, the figure for those over 50 is just over a third (35.9 percent). In the case of 18 to 29-year-olds, on the other hand, it is even two-thirds, to be precise: 65.4 percent.
Another finding of the survey is the influence of the currently high inflation on the desire to have your own house for the holidays: 42.2 percent of those surveyed between 18 and 29 years of age stated that the current economic situation had strengthened the corresponding thought. After all, it was almost every fourth person under the age of 50 (23.9 percent).
“The figures suggest that holiday properties are in demand, especially in times of high inflation – from both an emotional and a financial point of view,” says Nikolaus Thomale, Managing Director of Myne.
However, for many Germans, the desire to own their own holiday home will remain for the rest of their lives. And due to rising interest rates and high inflation, houses and apartments are becoming unaffordable for even more people. According to Thomale, the acquisition of a high-quality holiday property worth one million euros requires an average equity capital of 500,000 euros.
Because the purchase of foreign real estate is not comparable with the purchase in Germany. The banks usually demanded a higher equity share. The paid-off property in Germany is often required as security.
This is another reason why sharing models, in which interested parties buy shares in holiday homes in popular holiday regions, are experiencing increased interest, according to Thomale, who runs the Myne company together with his partner Fabian Löhmer. This applies in particular to younger people.
Partial ownership would enable 19 times more interested parties to purchase a holiday home, according to a study by Ernst published earlier this year
In purely mathematical terms, according to EY, around 22.4 million people in Germany could afford a holiday property. Then all you have to do is agree on the usage interests of eight parties.
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