The real estate industry is anticipating a short-term need for hundreds of thousands of apartments in Germany for war refugees from the Ukraine.

This is shown by an analysis presented by the umbrella association of the Central Real Estate Committee (ZIA) on Tuesday in Berlin.

Accordingly, the number of refugees from the war country should be at least 310,000 in the most favorable scenario, which corresponds to 120,000 additional apartments.

In the middle scenario, Germany would have to prepare for around 810,000 refugees and a need for 310,000 apartments, as calculated by the Empirica research institute for the ZIA.

In the maximum case, there are up to 1.29 million people from Ukraine and 500,000 additional apartments.

Almost half of the demand for housing must be covered by new construction, the association emphasized.

For comparison: In the coalition agreement, the federal government has set itself the goal of building 400,000 new apartments per year - far more than were completed in 2020 (a good 306,000).

According to Empirica, the possible need for new buildings in the course of the Ukraine war is basically manageable.

According to the ZIA, it can be assumed that refugees from Ukraine have a comparatively high level of education and that there is a high employment rate among women.

This should make integration into the labor market easier, but also lead to the search for apartments.

The association reiterated its call for a refugee summit with the federal, state and local governments as well as business and aid organizations.

According to ZIA President Andreas Mattner, sufficient capacities must be created as quickly as possible for people who have fled Ukraine.