The federal government is planning to build 400,000 new apartments every year. However, inflation is threatening the implementation of numerous projects, warns the Association of Towns and Municipalities. By 2024, tens of thousands of apartments could not be built differently than planned.
In view of rising interest rates and construction costs, local authorities and the housing industry are warning of a drastic halt to the construction of cheap rental and social housing. Up to 70 percent of the originally planned projects threaten to collapse in the coming years. "The rising construction costs are currently causing numerous new construction projects in privately financed and subsidized housing to be put on hold or not restarted," said the managing director of the Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg of the "Augsburger Allgemeine". This is leading to a further shortage of living space, especially in conurbations, and in some cases to an associated increase in rents.
The central association of the housing industry GdW also expects that tens of thousands of new rental apartments cannot be built as planned. Internal surveys suggested that "about 70 percent of all planned projects are either canceled completely" or "at least postponed for a long time," said GdW President Axel Gedaschko of the "Augsburger Allgemeine". By 2024, 60,000 new apartments would be on the brink in rental housing alone.
In addition to significantly higher interest rates on financing, rising construction costs and inflation, the increasingly stringent energy standards would slow down new rental construction projects. "We stand behind the climate protection goals," emphasized Gedaschko, but pointed out that climate protection "should be implemented sensibly" and "ultimately also be affordable for our tenants". He criticizes that while the government keeps increasing the claims, it is reducing the funding at the same time.
Against this background, the goal of the traffic light coalition to build 400,000 new apartments in Germany every year is waste, criticizes Gedaschko. With the previous funding amount of "just one billion euros a year for the whole of Germany", this new construction target "cannot even begin to be achieved". At least five times the amount is needed for the new construction subsidies for affordable housing. Market rents of "in the future 16 to 18 euros net cold per square meter" are "simply unaffordable" for the broad middle class.
