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Construction of single-family houses: Complaint about lack of materials
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa
Craftsmen and construction companies have hardly any spare capacity, material is scarce and expensive and anyone who wants to finance their own home has to pay significantly higher interest rates.
Against the background of these developments, the number of building permits in Germany is falling.
The authorities gave the green light for the construction of 31,688 apartments in May, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
This is a decrease of 2.1 percent within a year.
A total of 155,347 building permits were issued from January to May, 1.6 percent fewer than in the same period last year.
If you factor out distorting seasonal and calendar effects, the number of permits from April to May even fell by 6.6 percent to around 29,800.
Significant decline in single-family homes
There was a significant drop of 17.8 percent to 34,809 for single-family homes.
In the case of two-family houses, however, the number of approved apartments increased by 2.1 percent to 14,076.
An increase of 9.1 percent to 83,308 approved apartments was recorded for apartment buildings.
From January to May, 135,133 apartments were approved for new residential buildings – 1.5 percent fewer than a year ago.
The number of building permits is an important indicator of the housing shortage in many cities.
The traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP wants to ensure that 400,000 apartments are built each year.
However, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, construction companies are increasingly complaining about a lack of materials.
For example, there are bottlenecks in steel, insulating materials and bricks: “These bottlenecks are only slowly disappearing.
There are sometimes rapid price increases as a result of the scarcity,” said Ifo expert Felix Leiss recently in a survey by the Munich Institute.
High energy prices also drove up prices for many building materials.
An unusually large number of construction projects are currently being cancelled.
mmq/Reuters/dpa
