New construction offensive required: 451 new apartments in the district!

New construction offensive required: 451 new apartments in the district!

Something is happening on the housing market in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district: Last year, 451 new apartments were built here, including 158 in single- and two-family houses. But the Bauen-Agrar-Environment industrial union (IG BAU) is sounding the alarm. According to a report on Merku A new construction offensive for affordable housing must be initiated, as the current housing market remains unaffordable for many citizens.

IG BAU demands that the “good and cheap” approach should be implemented in housing construction. In this context, the federal government's “housing construction turbo” is seen as urgently necessary to meet the needs in the district. Current studies show that there is still a lot of potential for further construction projects and renovations.

The situation on the social housing market

But it's not just the general situation that is tense. Germany is struggling with a significant housing crisis: 550,000 apartments are missing nationwide, including around 35,000 in Berlin. Social housing is particularly affected, the number of which has been falling continuously since the 1990s. According to experts, Germany needs at least 210,000 new social housing units annually by 2030 to counteract the threat of “chronic burnout in the social housing market”. This is reported by, among others, IG BAU and the Pestel Institute, presented in a study IG Construction.

There are currently only around 1 million social housing units while politicians act. Last year, the traffic light government only promised 23,000 social housing units - that is fewer than the average of previous years. In order to defuse the situation, municipalities must make more affordable building land available and construction costs must be reduced. A reduction in VAT to 7% for the construction of new social housing could help.

Effects of rising construction costs

The challenges are enormous: the conflict in Ukraine has driven up construction costs and interest rates. Despite the positive development of falling building interest rates since the end of 2023, prices for new buildings rose by around 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the previous year. The share of residential construction in the total construction volume was 57%, which shows that there is still potential for growth. This emerges from data from the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Construction BMWSB can be found.

Despite a slight decline in building completions in 2021, multi-storey apartment construction has shown a positive trend since 2005. However, major efforts are needed to close the gap in social housing. In order to achieve noticeable relief, a construction stimulus program must be launched that supports social housing and could stimulate the construction industry.

The demands are clear: A nationwide social housing register, standard standards in social housing construction and a basic law guarantee for the promotion of new construction of social housing are just some of the issues that politicians must now address. At a time when demographic change brings additional challenges, it remains to be seen how quickly and sustainably these measures can be implemented.