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Apartment buildings in Berlin (archive image)
Photo: Lothar Ferstl / DPA
Despite approved construction projects, the completion of more and more apartments is a long time coming.
For 2020, an overhang of almost 790,000 apartments is estimated, as stated in the spring report of the Central Real Estate Committee.
The number has increased significantly in recent years, it said.
One possible explanation are capacity limits.
Because the companies have their hands full, building takes longer and longer.
The industry association estimates that around 300,000 new apartments will have been completed in 2020.
In 2021 it could be 310,000.
Despite the slight increase, there is an ever greater gap in the supply gap.
Apartments are scarce in many German cities.
Young people in particular are drawn there, it was said.
From an age of around 30, however, people would increasingly move to the surrounding area and to the more remote country, reinforced by the Corona crisis.
"Numerous advantages of living in the city have ceased to exist - at least temporarily - while the disadvantage of high housing costs remains," it said.
"The living requirements change, apartment features such as balcony, garden, study or generally more space are increasingly moving into the field of vision of those interested," registered the authors.
However, it cannot be proven that the home office leads to a sharp increase in urban exodus.
Rents and purchase prices continued to rise in many places in the past year.
For new contracts, landlords demanded a nationwide average of 7.57 euros per square meter at the end of 2020, 3.3 percent more than a year earlier.
There are clear differences depending on the region.
Anyone looking for a condominium had to spend an average of 8.6 percent more across Germany than at the end of 2019. An average of 2280 euros per square meter was required.
One- and two-family houses were on average 7.3 percent more expensive.
ssu / dpa-AFX