Empty promises to the construction industry: Still no “construction turbo” – and the next disaster is already looming. Building permits for apartments also collapsed in January 2024, by 23.5 percent compared to the previous year.
The situation is particularly dramatic for single-family homes: a slump of 42.7 percent at the beginning of the year. It's been a long time since it was really high interest rates and material costs that slowed down housing construction in the country. “It is more a lack of trust in reliable politics. Steel and insulation materials, for example, have become significantly cheaper in the last 18 months, and long-term interest rates have fallen by around one percent,” says the President of the Construction industry in Hesse, Thomas Reimann.