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New buildings in the Hanover region
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa
Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) wants to give families with low and medium incomes more support in buying their own home.
A multi-billion dollar loan program is to be launched for this purpose.
As the newspapers of the Funke Mediengruppe reported, citing a report by the Federal Ministry of Building, a new subsidy pot is to be aimed at families with at least one underage child and a maximum taxable annual income of 60,000 euros.
For each additional child, 10,000 euros are deducted from the annual income.
According to the report, these families are to receive a low-interest loan from the state development bank KfW, which is intended to replace the use of equity.
A total of 350 million euros should therefore be available annually for the families.
A further 650 million euros are therefore intended for all other applicants.
In addition to housing groups or cooperatives, for example, who can access the funds for multi-storey construction, this pot should also be available to self-users, for example families with an income of more than 60,000 euros or individuals.
In addition, municipalities or companies should also be able to access funds when it comes to the construction of daycare centers, schools, sports halls or office buildings, for example.
According to the report, the total funding adds up to one billion euros a year.
With the project, Geywitz turns away from her earlier line.
As recently as April, she had declared that the construction of new single-family homes was economically and ecologically nonsensical, that she wanted to curb it and instead provide incentives for the renovation of old buildings.
The subject of affordable housing is currently booming in view of the rapid price increases and higher interest rates.
Today, Wednesday, the federal cabinet is discussing the planned housing benefit reform, which is intended to relieve households with low incomes in the face of high inflation.
According to the draft by Minister of Construction Geywitz, state aid should increase by an average of 190 euros per month from January.
On average, housing benefit households should then receive around 370 euros a month.
In addition, the circle of beneficiaries will be significantly expanded: up to 1.4 million more households are to be added to the current 600,000 households.
The money for the funding program now planned is to be made available from the climate and transformation fund.
The funding should start from April 2023. Only new buildings that are above the energy efficiency house standard 55 should be funded.
"Family with low and medium incomes find it particularly difficult to create affordable housing for themselves in view of the tense housing market and the price increases for building materials," Geywitz told the Funke newspapers.
"That's why we deliberately focused on them with our new funding." In this way, parents could ensure that their children grow up in their own property.
At the same time, the funding is better than the Baukindergeld, said Geywitz.
The funding period for the child benefit, which the Union and SPD government introduced in 2018, expired in 2021.
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