display
For tenants in Germany, the situation remains tense in many places.
Despite the pandemic and economic uncertainty, landlords increased rents by 1.7 percent on a nationwide average last year.
That was 0.1 percentage points less than in 2019, but still more than three times the general price increase - last year the inflation rate was only 0.5 percent.
This is what the Hamburg-based market research company F + B has calculated.
The measured price increase relates to existing rents, i.e. current contractual relationships.
In many municipalities, these existing rents are the basis for the all-important rent index and the local comparative rents that landlords have to comply with.
You can raise prices not only for a new contract, but also for current contracts.
According to tenancy law, up to 20 percent is allowed every three years, in areas with a tight housing market it is 15 percent.
However, the local comparative rents always form the upper limit.
Source: WORLD infographic
display
Tenants do not have to expect continued steep price increases everywhere.
According to F + B, the price dynamics are shifting from south to north and from the expensive cities to the surrounding area.
"Overall, the comparison of rent levels in selected cities in East and West Germany shows that the special position of the greater Munich area is weakening and Stuttgart and the surrounding area have reached a similarly high rent level," the F + B experts state.
On average, tenants in Stuttgart pay EUR 10.38 net cold rent per square meter for a typical 65-square-meter apartment in a normal location.
That is significantly less than the more than 15 euros that are required for a new contract, but here it is about the entire portfolio average.
It also includes rental contracts that have been in place for many years or decades.
In Germany-wide average, the existing rents are 7.11 euros, as F + B has determined.
display
Munich is also still expensive, with an average of 9.72 euros per square meter.
It should not be overlooked here that the entire urban area is included in the calculation and older contracts on the outskirts pull the average value down.
New rentals particularly expensive
With current advertised rents, the situation is completely different, according to statistics from price portals such as Immobilienscout: New contract rents in the Bavarian capital have already exceeded the 20 euro threshold.
According to F + B, Munich is not even the most expensive municipality in the area.
In neighboring Karlsfeld, tenants pay an average of 10.90 euros, in Germering it is 10.22 euros and in Dachau 9.85 euros.
In many places in the surrounding area, rents are rising faster than in the core cities themselves, including Berlin, Potsdam, Frankfurt / Main and Cologne.
Source: WORLD infographic
display
"This shows that the old rule, whoever wants to live cheaper, has to move to the surrounding area, no longer applies," says F + B managing director Bernd Leutner.
“The extremely high price level in the core cities for a long time has led to continuous shifts in demand for rental apartments in the suburbs.
The high asking rents of the past few years are now also reflected with a time lag in the high, local comparative rents, ”said Leutner.
In addition, the market experts are seeing a catch-up effect in the north of Germany.
In the northern cities with rent indexes, the price increase in 2019 was 1.9 percent, last year it was already 2.1 percent and thus more than four times the inflation rate.
In the east and west, on the other hand, the increase weakened, in the south it remained at around 1.5 percent.
Overall, the following still applies: tenants live more cheaply in the east of the republic than in the west.
In almost all of the larger cities in the east, existing rents are below the national average.
In the west they are almost always above it.
There are sometimes big differences between the building age classes.
Whether a house was built in the early days, in the 60s or 80s or only in this century plays a decisive role, as a look at the statistics shows.
For example, if you live in a house from 1975 or 1985 in East Germany, you rarely pay more than 5.50 euros in rent.
In a new building from 2015 in Potsdam, however, landlords charge more than ten euros.
Source: WORLD infographic
In West Germany, on the other hand, the difference between building age classes is not that great overall - with Hamburg being the major exception.
In buildings from the 1960s and 1970s, Hanseatic city tenants only pay around seven euros.
New buildings, on the other hand, are unaffordable for most, with an average price of almost 13 euros - a record among western German metropolises.
In order to fully understand what is happening on the market, however, you always have to keep an eye on new lease rents and differentiate them more precisely according to residential areas on site.
In Berlin, for example, they have doubled in just ten years.
Build wealth
How do I invest 100,000 euros correctly?
As a WELT reader, you can take part in a free investment check by V-BANK and have your portfolio checked by an independent asset expert without obligation.
Benefit now from a professional opinion.
Learn more
So if you move out of a six-euro apartment, you have to expect to have to pay ten to twelve euros in the next apartment.
Even under the current so-called Berlin rent cap, jumping into the next apartment is expensive.
The difference is also high in other large cities, and in central locations the prices often rise even faster than was measured in the F + B inventory statistics.
display
Nationwide, however, the asking rents took a break last year - also the F + B determined a few weeks ago.
Between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2020, the experts no longer measured an increase, it is said.
In 27 of the 50 most expensive cities, these new contract rents have even fallen.
Nevertheless, many tenants are dissatisfied with the sometimes high price level.
A nationwide action alliance calls for a "Housing Action Day" and protests against high rents on March 27th.
"In the crisis, the social question and with it the rent and housing crisis worsen," it says in the appeal.
“The gap between the privileged and the non-privileged is getting deeper and wider.
We don't want to accept that. "
Even the market researchers of the Berlin service provider Empirica see a certain problem with the supply of cheap living space.
Empirica has dealt with the so-called “rent index relevant to basic security”.
Put simply, this describes only the lower third of the market, i.e. the area in which socially disadvantaged households rent an apartment.
Even in this segment, however, according to Empirica, prices have risen rapidly.
In Stuttgart, Frankfurt or Freiburg, socially disadvantaged people would have to pay between 500 and 700 euros for a 60-square-meter apartment.
In Munich it is 950 euros.