Frankfurt exceeded the magic limit in 2014: At that time, the seven hundred thousandth resident was symbolically welcomed.

Things then continued rapidly: by mid-2022, around 765,000 people were already living in the city, around 90,000 more than ten years earlier.

This growth is mainly due to the influx of young people up to the age of 30 from abroad, as an analysis by the data service provider Empirica Regio shows.

In the older generation, on the other hand, Frankfurt is losing residents.

If one offsets the arrivals and departures of those who are older than 50 years, the bottom line is a minus.

The surrounding area benefits from this, which could be due to the housing market, among other things.

Gunter Murr

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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A trend towards the region can be observed particularly in the age group of fifty to sixty years old.

In the period from 2013 to 2021, Frankfurt lost 4,220 residents to its direct neighbors alone.

The Taunus and the city of Offenbach have benefited the most, while the districts of Offenbach and Groß-Gerau have benefited less.

In the longer term, the balance in the cities and districts of the "second ring" around Frankfurt is almost balanced.

Sometimes more people moved away, sometimes more.

The outlier is the Gießen district, which gave 245 more residents to Frankfurt than moved from the metropolis.

But even in the group of seniors from 65 years of age, the number of those who turn their backs on Frankfurt predominates.

In this age group, the city lost a total of 2,912 residents to the surrounding area between 2013 and 2021.

The most popular destinations are Wetterau, Main-Kinzig-Kreis and Hochtaunuskreis.

Less important is the surrounding area, which arithmetically took in 478 seniors from Frankfurt.

The Rheingau and the district of Limburg-Weilburg stand out in particular.

The statistics only show the difference between people moving away and moving in, but not their strength.

Since people from the surrounding area are also moving to Frankfurt in the respective age groups, the number of those who are turning their backs on the city is even greater overall than the balance would suggest.

Exactly how large cannot be determined from the data published by the authorities, says Jan Grade, Managing Director of Empirica Regio.

According to his findings, the phenomenon of older people leaving the core cities can also be observed in other metropolitan areas.

However, it is not the same everywhere.

Converted to the number of inhabitants, Munich, for example, loses significantly fewer seniors to the surrounding area than Frankfurt.

Young families are also moving away

The numbers do not allow any conclusions to be drawn as to which locations are preferred in the respective districts, i.e. whether a village environment or the medium-sized centers are more popular.

However, there is a certain probability that it is cities like Bad Homburg, Bad Vilbel or Hofheim that benefit from the migration movements away from Frankfurt.

"Although many Frankfurt seniors are leaving the city, that doesn't mean that they are looking for a rural idyll," says Marian Kirchhoff, Managing Director of the real estate service provider Deutsche Teilkauf.

He relies on a nationwide survey that his company commissioned.

Accordingly, the small-town environment with good infrastructure is more in demand.

A green environment and a quiet location are right behind it.

However, the results of the survey do not reveal whether these needs are a reason for moving in old age.

In general, the willingness of seniors to move is rather low, according to Kirchhoff.

Those who do are primarily looking for residential property in the well-connected areas around the big cities.

Real estate prices there are significantly lower.

The broker Frank Alexander from Bruchköbel, board member of the German Real Estate Association (Central region), has therefore noticed a lively demand from interested parties from Frankfurt - not from seniors, but from younger people in the "extended family start-up phase".

In fact, the statistics show that Frankfurt has lost several thousand residents to the surrounding area in the past few years, even in the thirty to fifty-year-old age group.

The terraced house with a garden is still very popular with families, says Alexander.

"But there is nothing affordable in Frankfurt." The corona pandemic and the trend towards working from home have increased interest in the surrounding area again.

"If you don't have to go to the office every day, you also have to put up with longer journeys." Grade can imagine that partial retirement could also be a reason why people under the age of 65 decide to live in a new place.

For retirees, however, this argument is irrelevant.

Grade assumes that the desire for a low-barrier apartment and the high rents in Frankfurt promote the willingness to move.

Broker Alexander cannot confirm this based on the experiences he and his colleagues have had.

There is no pronounced demand for senior-friendly apartments in the surrounding area.

He only knows one common reason that motivates seniors to move: They want to live close to their children and grandchildren.