In 2019, each resident in Germany had an average of 47 square meters of living space at their disposal. Per capita living space has risen steadily in recent years. In 2018, living space per resident was 46.7 square meters; in 2010, it was just 45 square meters. Thus, per capita land use has increased by 4.4 percent over the past ten years. Living space per household has also increased. In 2019, apartments in Germany averaged 91.9 square meters in size, representing an average increase of one square meter since 2010. The Federal Statistical Office recently reported these figures (Source: www.destatis.de).
The increased use of living space per resident goes hand in hand with the trend toward smaller household sizes. Between 1991 and 2018, the average household size decreased from 2.27 to 1.99 people. During the same period, the number of single-person households in Germany rose by 46 percent, and the number of two-person households increased by 29 percent. By contrast, the number of households with more than two people has decreased by 20 percent. Single-person households now account for 42 percent of all private households (Source: www.destatis.de).
Greater land use leads to a greater need for housing
The trends toward greater per-capita land use and smaller households are increasing the demand for housing and thereby exacerbating the shortage of available housing. This is another reason why it is necessary to accelerate and expand housing construction in Germany.
Progress is being made in housing construction, but not fast enough. 293,000 housing units were completed in 2019, which was about two percent more than in the previous year. However, the federal government’s target of ensuring the construction of 1.5 million units between 2018 and 2021 has become an unattainable goal. At least the building permit figures show a positive trend. In the first five months of this year, despite the COVID-19 crisis, 4.2 percent more housing units were approved than in the same period last year (source: www.destatis.de). Already in 2019, the number of approved housing units—360,600—was 4.0 percent higher than the previous year.
Building permit numbers in Berlin are rising unexpectedly
Meanwhile, somewhat surprisingly, Berlin also saw an increase in the number of building permits issued in the first half of 2020. 12,788 apartments were approved between January and June, which is 12.7 percent more than in the same period last year, according to the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistical Office. There was a particularly sharp increase in multi-story residential construction, as the number of approved apartments in multi-family buildings rose by 18.9 percent (source: www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de).
In 2019, building permits were still on the decline. For the year as a whole, the number of approved apartments fell by 7 percent to 22,524. Berlin also recorded declining permit figures in 2018 and 2017. 2020 could now potentially be a year of reversal—but to assess this definitively, it would be better to wait for the results of the second half of the year (Source: www.accentro.de)
