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Rent hotspot in the south: street in Munich
Photo: Ralph Peters / imago images/Ralph Peters
For many citizens, the distance to work has grown during the corona pandemic - and also geographically: The mass work from home has caused many people in Germany to relocate their place of residence.
Large cities are particularly affected by this trend.
These are the results of a joint survey by the Munich Ifo Institute (you can find the entire study here) and the real estate portal Immowelt.
A total of 12,000 people in Germany were surveyed.
However, not all regions in Germany can benefit equally from this development.
Moving from the big city all the way to the countryside is only an option for a few.
The majority of those who moved away stayed further away from the big city: 38 percent moved to the so-called “Bacon Belt”.
30 percent moved to smaller cities with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants.
Still only attractive for a few: small towns (nine percent) and rural areas (five percent).
Financial burden increases dramatically
Those who still live in the big city often have similar ideas: ten percent of the inhabitants of big cities have far-reaching relocation plans for the next twelve months.
40 percent think of another big city, 22 percent of a place in the "affluent belt".
»Contrary to some expectations, the corona pandemic has not led to people fleeing to the countryside.
Our survey results indicate that this is not to be expected in the future either,” says Mathias Dolls, Deputy Head of the Ifo Center for Macroeconomics and Surveys.
An important driving force of the metropolitan flight: the money.
Many of those questioned give energy prices and higher rents without heating as a reason.
The data is clear: in May 2021, only 12 percent of those surveyed felt that housing costs were a major financial burden.
This proportion has now risen to 20 percent.
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