Frankfurt Vogelsberg and Wetterau were two regions that many Frankfurters only knew for a long time from the weekly market, where traders sell sausages, potatoes or other agricultural products from this region. But that has changed.
Because the prices for real estate in the banking metropolis continue to rise and at the same time many people have learned to appreciate life in nature, especially during the corona crisis, real estate buyers are looking for properties beyond the city limits – and have discovered the Vogelsberg for themselves.
While a one- or two-family house in Frankfurt is offered for an average of 750,000 euros, real estate buyers in the Vogelsberg region only have to put a third of this amount on the table, according to an evaluation of the purchase prices by the real estate agent von Poll for 2020.
With a budget of less than 300,000 euros, you could only find what you were looking for in the Limburg-Weilburg district (average price 286,400 euros) and in the Odenwaldkreis (295,000 euros).
In Vogelsberg, however, the most sparsely populated district in all of Hesse, you can even find something for well under 1000 euros per square meter of living space: a house, not necessarily in the best condition, but with a spacious plot of land. But whether the bargain is really worth it needs to be carefully considered – not least because of the distance to the banking metropolis.
Worth a look for commuters: Langen
The Rhine-Main area is particularly interesting for those property buyers who can and want to commute in comparison to other regions in Germany, as a study by the Hamburg World Economic Institute HWWI on behalf of Postbank recently revealed.
The experts compared the cheaper property prices in the surrounding area with the costs and effort involved in commuting three days a week. This not only included the costs of local public transport, but also factors such as the cost of a study and the higher expenditure of time.
The result: Anyone who lives in Langen in the Offenbach district and commutes to Frankfurt has only used up the savings from buying cheaper real estate in Langen after 76 years. The journey from Langen to Frankfurt by train takes just nine minutes.
The neighboring Dreieich scores similarly well. So it’s no wonder that real estate prices in this district have risen significantly in recent years – but at 589,500 euros they are still well below those in Frankfurt, the Main-Taunus district, the Hochtaunus district, Wiesbaden and Mainz.
Among millionaires in the Taunus
But anyone who thinks that the situation for property buyers is better shortly after the city limits are wrong: In the immediately adjacent districts of Frankfurt, the prices are now hardly cheaper than in the city itself.
The city of Bad Vilbel, for example, which is already in the Wetterau but borders on the northern outskirts of Frankfurt, has long been considered a kind of insider tip for property buyers, so the prices are almost as high as in Frankfurt.
And in quite a few locations in the west bordering regions of Main-Taunus and Hochtaunus up to the state capital Wiesbaden, the prices are sometimes even higher than in the banking metropolis. It is not uncommon for villas here to change hands for several million, although in somewhat more remote locations at the foot of the Feldberg – in places such as Glashütten or Schmitten – you can also find cheaper properties.
The old principle applies here: the more rural and remote the location, the cheaper it is. Because the S-Bahn to this corner of the Taunus only leads to Kronberg or Bad Soden; There is only one regional train to Königstein from Frankfurt, which makes its last stop at the train station in the valley of the climatic health resort and does not advance further up into the Taunus. There is no telling that this will change. Anyone who lives here is dependent on the car.
For many residents this is not a big problem, at least from a financial point of view. Because the Hochtaunuskreis – which includes Kronberg and Königstein im Taunus – is one of the richest cities and districts in Germany. With a purchasing power of almost 32,000 euros per inhabitant, the district is only behind the Munich district and the front-runner Starnberg in a Germany-wide comparison, according to projections by the market research institute GfK.
The neighboring Main-Taunus district with the district town of Hofheim am Taunus follows in fifth place with 30,605 euros. For comparison: According to the GfK extrapolation, an average of 23,637 euros is available to every German.
Bad Soden, Hofheim or Oberursel and Bad Homburg are a bit cheaper than the places often referred to as the millionaire places Kronberg and Königstein – but have not been cheap for a long time. For people who move to the Rhine-Main region from abroad and do not necessarily want to live in the city, the latter in particular have a great advantage: There are several international schools here – a factor that should not be underestimated for many when looking for one Residence, even in Corona times.
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Nevertheless, real estate agent Stefan Schwendt from Schwendt & Rauschel Immobilien is cautious. “In the Hochtaunus the prices are now so high,” he says, “I don’t see much upside potential anymore. At some point a pain limit is reached. “
In his opinion, the same applies to Frankfurt. “For many, the prices in Frankfurt and in the immediate suburbs have become unaffordable,” he says. Schwendt does not consider speculation that the real estate market in Frankfurt will cool down as a result of this to be unrealistic. “That is partly no longer healthy,” he comments on the price trend in the city. In the past year alone, prices went up again by almost eleven percent, according to von Poll.
For wine lovers and pharmaceutical workers
The situation is a little better across the state border from Hesse to Rhineland-Palatinate – but not much. According to von Poll data, a house in Mainz costs an average of 600,000 euros – even though there was no notable increase in 2020.
Here, too, more and more people are moving to the surrounding area in search of their own home – for example in the Mainz-Bingen district – and are driving up prices there. Ingelheim, in particular, is in great demand, report brokers. Boehringer Ingelheim is also a major employer here, and the proximity of the vineyards is also attractive.
In the Mainz-Bingen district, prices recently rose by over 15 percent, but the average price of 435,000 euros for a house is still significantly less than in Mainz itself.
More and more property buyers are also pushing their way to Alzey. “We are currently noticing an increasing number of inquiries from the Rhine-Main area,” confirms Normann Schmidt, branch manager at von Poll Immobilien. One reason for the new zest for country is the desire and the opportunity to pursue hobbies that are impossible in cities, he says: old farmhouses with horse stables or associated barns that could be expanded are in great demand, reports broker Schmidt.
Disadvantage: infrastructure
But the country life also has its disadvantages, and this is clearly demonstrated on the way to the Vogelsberg: From Frankfurt you need at least an hour and a quarter by public transport to get to the district town of Lauterbach.
The connection is not exactly ideal: the S6 S-Bahn to the north from Frankfurt ends in Bruchenbrücken, a district of Friedberg. From here on, the prices of the real estate will also decrease. Because even by car, the drive on the Autobahn to Lauterbach takes over an hour.
But such long commutes don’t put off real estate buyers. “All areas along the A5 are in great demand,” reports Broker Schwendt. “They were before the corona pandemic, but demand has increased again.”
The cities of Fulda and Giessen also offer jobs. And so the prices in the Vogelsberg district in 2020 climbed by 43 percent compared to the previous year and thus showed the highest percentage increase in the analyzed districts around Frankfurt.
The district town is popular with property buyers.
(Photo: Bernd Euler / VISUM)
“Even if prices have risen here, there is still room for improvement,” Schwendt is convinced. “You can still find buyers who are able and willing to pay a little more.” For 350,000 euros, there are still beautiful properties in the Wetterau or Vogelsberg district – in closer proximity to Frankfurt, for example in Friedrichsdorf Sum downright ridiculed. You have to be lucky there to find a property at all. In the Wetterau or in the Vogelsbergkreis, however, there are still offers, “and a comparatively wide range”.
But properties in Alsfeld and Lauterbach are also quickly finding new owners. You shouldn’t think about more than three to four weeks after you’ve found your dream home. Nevertheless, one should take the time to check whether the property has a good internet connection – this is not a matter of course everywhere in the region, even if the topic of broadband expansion is being promoted in the region.
More: Rents and purchase prices are still rising – but not as much as they used to be