The construction industry demands: housing construction in Germany must finally be made a top priority. We are currently in a "vicious circle of progressive deterioration". The planned 400,000 apartments per year are history.
The construction and real estate industry urges the federal government to promote the construction of affordable housing in Germany. In the draft of a list of demands, which is entitled "Dramatic situation in housing construction - what needs to be done now" and is available to ntv, it says that the situation on the housing market is "alarming".
New housing construction continues to decline and rising construction and energy costs are leading to a "vicious circle of progressive deterioration". The authors of the paper, in which several construction and real estate industry associations are involved, continue to write: "The coalition's goal of building 400,000 apartments a year is becoming wishful thinking." The construction and real estate industry therefore wants to ask the federal government to take at least ten concrete steps. These included the demand that housing construction should be made "a top priority" and that Chancellor Olaf Scholz should push his cabinet on a "joint offensive".
The authors also call for a secure funding framework, targeted funding for new construction, the rapid provision of plots of land ready for construction and the enabling of serial and modular construction. The construction costs would also have to be reduced and the current cost increases counteracted by a "targeted raw materials strategy". Specifically, it says: "Predetermining individual building materials would be counterproductive, openness to technology must be guaranteed."
The President of the Main Association of the German Construction Industry, Peter Hübner, also assumes that the federal government's goal of building 400,000 apartments a year is becoming increasingly distant. "We are struggling with extremely rising material costs and this means that many clients are withdrawing their orders or are no longer being built to the extent that we had imagined," said Hübner ntv. At the same time, however, the demand is "infinite".
Hübner gave the reasons for the stagnating housing construction, among other things, the acute cost increases and the triple interest on loans: "Investors are in a double bind. This will ensure that housing construction declines and the goals of the federal government can never be achieved."
"We will distance ourselves even more from the 400,000 apartments," says Hübner. "And we fear - unless something really big moves now - that we will drop to 200,000 next year."
According to Hübner, the high material costs in particular would also have an impact on the coming year. "Right now we're definitely just dealing with increased material costs and that means we can build a lot less for the same money in 2023. That's going to be around 70 to 80 percent, we're estimating at the moment." Hübner demanded that the federal government create "incentives" and a "subsidy framework" so that investors would be interested in housing construction again.
The federal and state governments also have to act when it comes to real estate: “There is an infinite number of properties that are also in the hands of the municipalities, the federal states, but also the federal government and they have to be made available to investors at a reasonable price, earmarked for a specific purpose will."
Hübner also called for more "freedom" for the construction industry from the federal government: "It must be up to us whether we build serially or modularly. There are endless possibilities and that should simply be left to the industry."
