Enlarge image
Residential buildings in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel:
Photo: Marcus Brandt / dpa
On average 5,000 euros net per month – even in this income bracket, a couple can no longer even afford half of the single-family homes advertised.
For the highest-income fifth of society, only 47 percent of such real estate on offer was affordable at the end of 2022, according to a recent study by the German Economic Institute (IW).
At the beginning of last year, 62 percent of the single-family houses on offer were still affordable for the richest fifth.
Those who are exactly in the middle of society with their income have even less choice: A couple with around 3730 euros net per month could recently afford 28 percent of the properties on offer, the IW researchers found.
At the beginning of 2022 it was still 40 percent.
There are several reasons why home ownership is becoming increasingly unaffordable: the significant increase in interest rates for real estate loans, high construction costs and the generally sharp rise in consumer prices.
In the big cities in particular, there are fewer and fewer affordable properties.
According to the study, the number of affordable detached or semi-detached houses in the top seven cities – Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart – has more than halved in the past year.
In the surrounding areas of these cities, too, the selection has fallen to almost the same extent.
As a result, significantly fewer people bought their own homes and the number of properties on offer has increased, the researchers note.
Nevertheless, the prices have remained largely stable.
However, this does not apply to rents: Also because fewer people can move into their own property, the demand for rental apartments is growing, and rents rose significantly more in 2022 than in previous years.
fdi
