According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the construction of 354,400 apartments was approved last year.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The number of building permits for apartments in Germany continued to decrease over the course of 2022. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the construction of 354,400 apartments was approved last year. That was 6.9 percent or 26,300 fewer apartments than in 2021. At that time, 380,700 building permits were the highest since 1999.
The number of building permits was last lower than in 2022 in 2018 with 346,800 apartments, according to preliminary figures from the Federal Statistical Office.
The figures include both building permits for dwellings in new buildings and new dwellings in existing buildings. According to the statistical data, the decline in the number of building permits for single-family houses was particularly strong. The building authorities approved 78,100 new single-family homes. That is 15,800 fewer than in 2021.
Around 63 percent of new apartments in Germany are in apartment buildings. Due to the still high number of approvals in the first half of 2022, only 1.6 percent or 3100 fewer apartments were approved for apartment buildings in 2022 as a whole than in 2021. However, the downward trend accelerated over the course of the year.
According to Destatis, the main factors contributing to the decline in construction projects in 2022 are a lack of materials and high costs for building materials, a shortage of skilled workers in construction and increasingly poor financing conditions.
The economy is worried
The economy is worried. In view of the falling number of residential building permits in 2022, the Hessian business associations, for example, called on politicians at the beginning of March to create more new building space, not to make construction more expensive and to refrain from new market interventions. According to the State Statistical Office in Hesse, 25,059 building permits for new apartments were issued in 2022. That was 2,654 building permits or 9.6 percent fewer than in 2021.
One of the reasons for the declining number of permits is the immensely increasing construction costs. “The high financing and building material costs are further slowing down the willingness to invest,” warns Felix Pakleppa, General Manager of the German Construction Industry Association (ZDB).
Burkhard Siebert, Managing Director of the Hesse-Thuringia Construction Industry Association, said: “In Hesse, construction costs rose by 13.8 percent in 2022, which is the strongest increase in construction prices in 52 years. Politicians must finally digitize and accelerate planning and approval processes. Homemade price drivers such as the lack of landfill must be remedied. Building must not continue to become more expensive.
According to the ZDB, the companies are reducing the order backlog. However, should the critical situation in residential construction worsen and orders continue to plummet, it will not only become increasingly difficult for tenants in large cities, says Pakleppa.
There is also a considerable risk for the industry of not being able to maintain the number of employees. That would be devastating in view of the immense construction work involved, particularly in the area of inexpensive residential construction.
In principle, the number of building permits is considered an important early indicator for future construction activity, since building permits represent planned construction projects. Pakleppa explained, however, “that granted building permits meanwhile hardly lead to construction contracts. We are currently expecting 280,000 apartments to be completed in 2022 and 245,000 apartments in 2023”.
>> Read here: Real estate experts expect up to 700,000 missing apartments
According to the Federal Statistical Office, 293,393 apartments were completed in 2021. The federal government had set itself the goal of building 400,000 new homes every year.
More: That is why housing construction in Germany is becoming increasingly difficult