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Housing shortage in Germany: pensioners live too generously - families cramped

2023-02-06T08:02:01.630Z


The housing market in Germany is tight. Many people live in too cramped space - and some, on the other hand, too generously, as an IW study shows.


The housing market in Germany is tight.

Many people live in too cramped space - and some, on the other hand, too generously, as an IW study shows.

Cologne – The housing shortage in Germany is particularly serious in the big cities.

Finding an affordable rental apartment in Munich, Hamburg or Berlin usually turns out to be an impossibility.

In addition, the federal government repeatedly fails to meet its ambitious housing construction targets.

Housing market: Six percent live too cramped

But there is another problem that affects living space in Germany.

Many people are currently living in apartments that are too big, while others are in apartments that are too small.

This emerges from the study "Mismatch in the housing market" by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.

About six percent of households in German cities live too cramped.

This particularly affects people with a migration background and families, explain the IW experts.

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The number of people living in too small a space has risen again in recent years.

© German Economic Institute

About the same proportion now lives in apartments that are too large.

In purely mathematical terms, the space problem could thus be solved.

What also becomes clear in the study: Older people in particular often live in very spacious apartments.

It is often the case, especially with pensioners, that they do not move to a smaller apartment as soon as the children have moved out or the partner has died.

Overcrowding according to Eurostat:

A person is counted as living in an overcrowded household if the household does not have an appropriate minimum number of rooms, calculated as follows: one room per household, one room per couple living in the household, one room per person over 18 years old, one room for two people of the same sex between the ages of 12 and 17, one room for two children under 12 years old.

Pensioners and families: home exchange - cheap old leases as an obstacle

But couldn't pensioners and families just swap homes?

What initially sounds like a logical conclusion is not so easy to implement.

Because senior citizens in particular have often been living in their apartments for a long time, have older leases and therefore live very cheaply in comparison.

Nobody would probably move into an apartment that is just as expensive but then has less space.

Then there is the energy crisis.

Because a larger apartment also causes higher energy costs.

So if you are currently looking for a new home, you will probably also consider this factor more than was the case in the past.

In the long run, however, this will not solve the housing problem.

The authors of the study therefore see only one long-term solution: new construction.

And here it is also still lacking.

Especially now, new construction projects are stagnating due to rising interest rates and high construction costs.

More subsidies are needed and the cities should not let up in the designation of building land.

(ph)

List of rubrics: © Julian Stratenschulte/dpa/Symbolbild

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-02-06

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