The construction industry has been in a deep crisis for over a year now, which only seems to be getting worse. “We haven’t achieved anything in a year,” summarizes Lukas Siebenkotten, President of the German Tenants’ Association.
The construction industry is once again appealing to the federal government, but also to local and state governments, to pull out all the stops to stimulate the market again. It is no longer about individual measures but about the entire range of measures that needs to be implemented, says Katharina Metzger, president of the Federal Association of German Building Materials Trade (BDB) “Housing construction is more important in Germany than the automobile industry,’ says Martin Gorning, from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). The DIW expects a decline in housing construction of five percent for 2024 compared to the already very bad year of 2023, that is five billion euros less taxes that the state has to prepare for.