Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) is expected on Monday at the opening of the international BAU trade fair (11.00) in Munich. The industry is suffering from increased construction costs, rising interest rates and a shortage of skilled workers. According to the Ifo Institute, there is a growing wave of cancellations, with every fourth housing construction company reporting too few orders. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 26 percent fewer building permits for new apartments were issued at the beginning of the year than a year ago.
The controversial ban on new oil and gas heating systems from next year is also likely to be a topic at the fair. Industry representatives had warned against a climate policy with a crowbar.
At the fair, the Pestel Institute is presenting a study on “grey housing shortages”. Germany is getting old and poorer. “If housing costs – also due to the necessary climate protection measures – continue to rise at the pace of the last few years, many seniors, who are far from expecting this today, will have to limit their consumption,” said institute director Matthias Günther. The number of seniors who are dependent on social assistance will increase significantly in the next 15 years. The consequence would actually be moving to smaller, cheaper apartments. But “retirement homes are scarce number one,” said Günther. Too little is happening with age-appropriate conversion and new construction.
The study “Living in old age” was carried out by the Pestel Institute on behalf of the Federal Association of Building Materials Specialists (BDB). BDB President Katharina Metzger said before the trade fair that instead of renovating residential buildings first for climate protection and then for senior living, both must be coupled. The federal government is concentrating heavily on climate protection. Building and renovating for seniors is in danger of being forgotten.
According to construction experts, residential buildings could be built much faster and at lower cost with a more industrialized construction method. According to a study by the strategy consultancy EY-Parthenon and the BayWa Group, which was presented in the run-up to the trade fair, the lever for this is building in series with prefabricated components and digital process optimization.
“The construction of the future must be much more digital, more standardized and therefore more cost-efficient,” says BayWa manager Steffen Mechter. “By planning and rebuilding every building from scratch as we have up until now, we are wasting existing resources.”
Hardly any industry is subject to such strict legal requirements as the German construction industry. In addition, many players and trades are involved in a construction project and almost every building is an individual one-off. According to the study, the most effective lever for more productivity is industrial prefabrication.
If work steps were relocated from the construction site to a factory, building would become less dependent on the weather, easier and faster. This ranges from the use of pre-assembled assemblies to technically fully equipped room modules. In an apartment building with 25 apartments, for example, 15 percent of the costs could be saved, said Björn Reineke, management consultant at EY-Parthenon. Relocating part of the added value to the factory building can reduce construction time by 30 percent.
