The non-profit state housing cooperative Lawog has withdrawn its interest in land prices of 700 and 900 euros per square meter. “That’s no longer our part,” says CEO Nikolaus Prammer. Lawog has therefore not bought any land in Leonding because such land prices are not justifiable for the customer clientele that Lawog wants to serve, reports Prammer at the annual media conference. Lawog has 130,000 square meters of land reserves. Prammer assures: all in regions where there is a need for housing.
The Lawog – founded almost 70 years ago to replace barracks – is represented in 200 communities in Upper Austria. The offer is not needed everywhere. Properties are being sold in Sandl and Weyer because there are long-term vacancies, Prammer said.
The bottom line is that the vacancy rate is a low 1.23 percent, which also includes apartments that have not been rented for a few months due to renovation, explains Prammer.
This year, Lawog is planning to start building around 200 apartments. Prammer is convinced that the building price limits that have been relaxed by the state (the OÖN reported) mean that offers are now coming in. As reported, due to the sharp rise in building prices for social housing at the beginning of the year, there were no tenders and construction companies did not submit any offers.
Lawog currently has 472 apartments under construction, almost a quarter of which are condominiums. 117 are to be handed over this year. The construction volume resulting from the buildings of the previous year was 75 million euros, including renovations, 95.8 million euros (2020: 77.6 million) were processed. Lawog owns 16,400 apartments, and tenants change hands 1,450 times a year.
The Lawog board sees the energy price debate pragmatically: Whatever is possible will be done. In urban areas, 85 percent of the heating is provided by district heating. Converting from gas heating to heat pumps is sometimes possible, but means higher costs for the tenants because they require more intensive care, says second board director Frank Schneider. (sib)
Source: Nachrichten
