Housing: Housing management: Number of new apartments should collapse

The Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies (GDW) expects significantly fewer rental apartments in the current year. The number of units completed by the member companies in the GDW could therefore go back by around 40 percent to just under 17,700, the association announced.

While the investments for maintenance among members increase slightly, they should go back to 6.4 billion euros for the new building in the current year.

“This also applies to funded apartments for tenants in the lower part of the income,” said GDW President Axel Gedaschko. Nationwide, the association expects that almost 130,000 apartments will be built in this and next year than in the two years before. “And at a time when we would have needed every new apartment.”

The reason for the further decline therefore remains the high costs in storey apartment construction. Building services in the new building area have been more expensive since 2019. The prices remained at a high level and continued to rise, emphasized Gedaschko. A real relaxation is not in sight.

Number of new social housing is increasing again

As a result, the affordable living space in particular is becoming increasingly scarce. The nationwide number of social housing has been stagnating around one million for years. Much of them are owned by the GDW member companies, which are municipal, federal or state-owned, church, cooperative and private sector actors.

After all, the number of newly built social housing in Germany has increased again in recent years as a result of considerable public funding and was around 27,000 units in Germany in 2024 – as high as it has been in six years. Measured against the amount of funding, this increase is far too low, emphasized Gedaschko.

In addition to the costs, the GDW also sees numerous bureaucratic hurdles that have been slowing down the new building for years. Environmental or monument protection requirements would delay projects over the years and make planning more expensive.

The association therefore calls for a special EU emergency prescription, such as that was issued for the expansion of renewable energies. This gave the new building affordable housing a higher prioritization compared to other legal goods. “That would be an extremely sharp instrument,” emphasized Gedaschko. The regulation would apply immediately in all Member States.