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A good fifth fewer properties changed hands. So few real estate sales were last registered in the land register in 2015. The value of the transactions even fell by almost a quarter to 16.6 billion euros, according to the Remax real estate index for the first half of the year. In particular, semi-detached and terraced houses, which are popular with families, are declining sharply.
Properties with prices between 400,000 and 1 million euros are massively affected by the drop in demand, according to Anton Nenning from Remax in a press release. Semi-detached and terraced houses would be considered to be particularly dependent on financing and would have recorded the highest losses with a drop of one third. The demand for single-family houses and villas has only fallen by 16 to 17 percent. Buildings on the lake are in much greater demand than in the previous year, forest areas, vineyards, lakeside properties or allotments are “completely unimpressed” by the developments.
Around 58,000 properties were booked in the first half of 2023, 16,000 fewer than a year ago. All federal states recorded a minus, in Vienna and Lower Austria it was the strongest in absolute numbers, each with over 3,000, but Salzburg and Vorarlberg were proportionally hardest hit with declines of over 30 percent each. Most properties changed hands in Lower Austria (almost 12,000), while Styria has pushed Vienna into second place by a hair’s breadth (around 9,300 each). Burgenland lost last place to Vorarlberg.
“The regional differences clearly point to the financing connection. Where real estate is cheaper and therefore less to finance, the slump in bookings is low,” says Remax Managing Director Bernhard Reikersdorfer.
The value of the land register entries fell by more than 5 billion euros to 16.6 billion euros. Vienna accounted for almost half of the decline. However, the previous year had brought an absolute record value in transactions, the value of real estate sales in the first half of 2023 was still – nominally – the third best in history, Remax recalls.
The current, preliminary figures for July and August also do not indicate that the bottom has already been reached, according to Remax. Young couples and young families would suffer the most from tighter lending standards. However, the development also affects the construction industry, the prefabricated house industry and the construction-related trades with billions in sales declines.
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