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Thatched roof houses in Wenningstedt on Sylt: New accommodation concept is intended to curb sell-outs on the island
Photo: imago images / localpic
The corona crisis has fueled the tense real estate market on the German North Sea islands again.
The prices at the already expensive locations have continued to rise.
The North Frisian Islands, with Sylt at the top, are clearly ahead of the East Frisian Islands in terms of price level and growth rates, as can be seen from the current coastal report by the brokerage firm Von Poll, which is available to the dpa news agency.
Accordingly, the average asking prices in the first quarter of 2022 on the North Frisian Islands climbed by 17.1 percent to EUR 14,115 per square meter within a year.
For the East Frisian Islands, the brokerage firm made a price jump of 5.7 percent to 8206 euros.
»Demand from buyers is still high on the North Sea coast and in all price segments, with supply stagnating in some regions.
This further strengthens the price dynamics," said managing director Daniel Ritter.
On average, real estate on Juist, Spiekeroog and Co. is 42 percent cheaper than on the North Frisian Islands.
The biggest price driver among the islands is Sylt, where 18,740 euros per square meter are called for an average house, 21.7 percent more than a year earlier.
"Sylt is as popular as ever," says the local Von Poll branch manager, Martin Weiß.
"However, the supply has been reduced to around a third and that means prices are spiraling upwards."
The district of North Friesland, which includes Sylt, Föhr and Amrum, but also Sankt Peter-Ording, had already been named the most expensive district in Germany by the Postbank in its real estate atlas published at the end of March - with an average price per square meter of 7977 euros (2021).
Otherwise, the list of the ten most expensive districts only includes districts from the commuter belt around Munich and from the holiday areas in the foothills of the Alps.
Sylt discusses stricter rules for vacation rentals
The high prices and the scarce supply sometimes lead to social tensions.
Many islanders who can no longer afford life on the islands have already been forced to move to the mainland - and commute to work on the islands.
In the case of Sylt, the German social association (SoVD) had already warned of “a kind of Reichengetto” in the north in 2016.
The islands are bracing themselves against the further sell-off with various plans.
The municipality of Sylt, for example, recently had a new accommodation concept developed.
The report presented last week comes to the conclusion that the amount of misused living space is already far too high and the island is too full.
Stricter rules are now being discussed, new holiday apartments could be stopped.
With their approaches, however, the islands are faced with an ever larger clientele of buyers who are becoming more solvent.
According to Von Poll, those interested in real estate on the North Sea come from all over Germany, and in view of the price level, they are increasingly expanding their search radius to the hinterland.
The prices asked on the mainland also rose sharply, for example by 22.8 percent to 2544 euros and 22 percent to 2489 in the East Frisian districts of Wittmund and Aurich.
This is topped by the North Frisian mainland and the district of Dithmarschen, where prices have risen by an average of 26.2 percent to EUR 2,657 and 27.6 percent to EUR 2,353 per square meter.
It has also become significantly more expensive in Cuxhaven compared to the first quarter of 2021.
Apr/AFX