The German Tenants' Association expects a "very tough year" for tenants.
The situation on the housing market is getting worse and worse.
Berlin – The German Tenants' Association and the building trade union IG BAU are sounding the alarm.
The housing market is on the brink of disaster.
"The alarm bells of the housing shortage have not rang as loud as they do now for a long time: The situation on the housing market is becoming more and more dramatic," said Tenant Association President Lukas Siebenkotten to the newspapers of the
Funke media group
.
“We will experience a severe slump in the supply of subsidized, affordable housing in particular.”
The federal and state governments would have to turn things around now.
"Or we will experience an unexpected disaster on the housing market," Siebenkotten continued.
Higher interest rates, expensive materials: housing construction is faltering
The high level of immigration, especially war refugees from Ukraine, has recently put pressure on the real estate market in Germany, where living space is scarce anyway.
In addition, housing construction is faltering because many people can no longer afford to build in view of higher interest rates and expensive materials.
Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) has already admitted that the traffic light coalition will miss its target of 400,000 new apartments per year.
According to a recent study
quoted by
Funke -Blätter, the housing shortage in Germany is at its highest level in 30 years.
Nationwide, the housing deficit reached around 700,000 apartments by the end of 2022, according to the study by the Hanover Pestel Institute and the Schleswig-Holstein Institute Working Group for Contemporary Building Kiel (Arge).
This is "more than twice the annual production of apartments".
Siebenkotten expects 2023 to be a “very tough year for tenants”.
A lack of housing stands in the way of the traffic light strategy for skilled workers
Harald Schaum, deputy federal chairman of IG BAU, spoke of a conflict regarding the federal government's skilled labor strategy in view of the lack of housing.
“Living and working – they belong together.
No one will come if they can't live here or can only live at horrendously high rents," said Schaum to the
Funke
newspapers.
"There is a huge dilemma: Housing construction is a very important key to the employment situation and thus to the functioning of the economy in Germany."
(ph/AFP/dpa)
List of rubrics: © Frank Hoermann/Sven Simon/Imago
