Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz is sticking to the goal of 400,000 newly built apartments every year, even if this currently seems unrealistic. “The conditions have gotten worse compared to last year, when we finished less than 300,000 apartments. At the same time – and that’s of course the reason why I’m not saying goodbye to the goal, there is an unbroken high demand,” said the SPD -Politician on Wednesday on Deutschlandfunk.
Geywitz explained that far too little had been invested in the past few years under the old federal government. “And that’s why there has to be pressure on the boiler here so that we can finally take these steps, the complete digitization of the building application, through planning to, of course, new technology on our construction sites. And also serial pre-production, because that’s an opportunity to work with to build more homes than before with the same number of people on site.” In addition, one wants to use existing structures: for example, convert unused offices into apartments and increase prefabricated buildings in East Germany. “The first federal states are so far that the proportion of social housing is increasing,” she said.
Alliance wants to massively promote new housing construction
In an alliance initiated by the government, business, trade unions and politics have agreed on the common goal of significantly more affordable housing in Germany. The participants in the “Alliance for Affordable Housing” signed an agreement on dozens of individual measures, as the German Press Agency learned from government circles. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz (both SPD) want to explain the plans this Wednesday.
In their coalition agreement in December, the SPD, Greens and FDP announced an “alliance for affordable housing” with all the important players. Among other things, the traffic light aims to achieve the construction of 400,000 new apartments per year, 100,000 of which will be publicly funded.
Geywitz said at the alliance’s opening meeting in April: “It’s about breaking through a thick board: In Germany we have a very great need for housing, especially affordable housing.” Despite delivery bottlenecks, a shortage of skilled workers and the energy price crisis as a result of the Ukraine war, Geywitz recently stuck to the goal of 400,000 new apartments.
In the summer, Geywitz announced on ZDF that he wanted to create the conditions for serial construction. “We need type approvals: If a house is approved in Hamburg, an official in Bavaria doesn’t have to think again about whether it’s a safe and good house.” She also announced reforms in construction subsidies.
Tenants’ Association: No high expectations
The President of the German Tenants’ Association, Lukas Siebenkotten, expressed reservations about the alliance. He didn’t really have high expectations for the presentation of the report, he told the Funke media group’s newspapers. “The work of the alliance has been overtaken by reality. We are miles away from the federal government’s goal of building 400,000 homes this year.” He assumes that there will be less than 300,000 apartments – “and possibly less social housing than in the previous year, when around 25,000 social housing were completed”.
“For the tenants, the problem of increasingly expensive housing has by no means been solved,” emphasized Siebenkotten. “For this very reason, the issue must be given more priority in politics. The chancellor must make that clear.”
Cold rents increase significantly
Nationwide, rents without heating have recently risen by an average of three percent within a year. The average price per square meter advertised in the first half of 2022 was 9.64 euros, according to a response from the federal government to a request from Left MP Caren Lay, which the dpa has received.
Not only tenants in the metropolises had to pay more for housing – the price increases for first and second rentals were particularly high at 13 percent in Salzgitter in Lower Saxony. In Rostock, net cold rents increased by twelve percent between the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2022. Bottrop was in third place with an increase of ten percent.
Elsewhere, too, rents without heating have increased significantly within a year – for example by nine percent in Kiel, by eight percent each in Leverkusen and Leipzig and by seven percent in Bremen. The values ??are based on calculations by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR). The BBSR evaluated advertisements from real estate portals and newspapers.
