In December, there was a particularly strong jump of 24.6% above the same month in the preceding year. Over the whole year, price adjusted new orders went up by 4.4%. This represents an increase of 9.3% for building construction, but a 0.6% decrease for civil engineering. For December alone, for its part, demand for construction was above average: the year’s last month, benefiting from mild temperatures, was up by 14.1%. Orders rose by 16.0% for building construction and by 11.8% for civil engineering.

Source: TD News International

In Europe, therefore, Germany has taken a special place, but one with the opposite price trend compared to the period before the financial and economic crisis. The bank said it sees an excess in demand particularly in metropolitan areas and for units in apartment buildings. The prices of new apartments rose by 7%, after inflation reached a significant 4% in 2010. The report identified a favorable labor market situation, confidence on the part of private households regarding employment and earnings prospects, and historically low mortgage interest rates as the main price drivers. The relatively unfavorable demographics are drops of wormwood for longer term prospects, however. Therefore, it was not given as a certainty that leeway for spending for housing is to increase sufficiently so that future rental income will be able to cover the rising housing prices.

The Mannheim-based ZEW economic think tank’s monthly poll of economic sentiment jumped for the third month in a row, rising to 5.4 from -21.6 in January. This was the first time the index turned positive since May, and compared with a consensus forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts for a gain to -12.0.

“The economic weakness at the turn of the year is starting to look more and more like it was just a mere dent,” said Rainer Sartoris at HSBC Trinkaus. “The economy is stabilising.” The ZEW data sent the euro to a session high against the dollar and German Bund futures to a session low. A separate ZEW gauge of current conditions rose to 40.3 from 28.4, also beating the consensus forecast for a rise to 30.0.

Germany’s export-driven economy recovered quickly from the 2008/09 financial crisis, but began to feel the pinch late last year as the debt crisis spread from Greece to its key trading partners in the euro zone and weighed on the real economy. Official data due tomorrow is expected to show the economy contracted 0.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

However, forward-looking surveys, such as ZEW’s, show that the economy likely picked up again at the beginning of 2012, avoiding a recession. The ZEW survey underlined the growing divergence between Germany’s robust economy and the ailing euro zone periphery. Data today showed Portugal’s recession deepening, with gross domestic product shrinking 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011. ”We are quite confident that the economy is picking up again in the first half of this year,” said Marcus Kappler, economist at ZEW. “The recession probability is very low.”

“We got some very positive news from the US. That’s stimulating of course. On the political side, I think the overall picture is that the crisis in the euro zone now looks less scary than three months ago.” Business sentiment rose for the third month in a row in January, a key survey by think tank Ifo recently showed, and market research group GfK said private consumption would rise again this year. ZEW said it conducted its survey of 284 analysts and investors between January 30th and February 13th.

(Source: Reuters)

“The number of traded residential units also increased by 27 per cent to around 92,000 units within 194 transactions, indicating that the market for large portfolios of over 1,000 units has regained momentum,” the global agency told OPP this week.

Where were the hotspots? “The demand for residential units in Berlin was particularly strong,” says CBRE Germany. “The federal capital traded around €2.3 billion and more than 32,300 residential units last year, which accounts for 37 per cent of the registered investment volumes and 37 per cent of all residential units in Germany. As a result of the large transaction volumes and high-end development projects in Berlin, the average price per sq m increased to €1,033.”

CBRE is convinced that the Euro-zone crisis is pushing large-scale investors toward “the country’s stable residential market.” According to CBRE’s Head of Residential Investment in Germany, Konstantin Lüttger, the German residential sector “is regarded as a secure investment at a time when the European sovereign debt market is in crisis and international capital markets are volatile.”

Overseas investors came from the USA (5.7 per cent), Sweden (4.2 per cent) and Austria (3.4 per cent).

(Source: http://www.opp.org.uk)

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 The institute said the increase is mainly due to the increasing appeal of apartments as investments. Regionally, there are significant differences. Rising to €227,900, a hike of 5.4%, the highest prices are again in Munich. The city is followed in the top apartment price ranks by Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Cologne. Berlin, with an increase of 9.4%, showed the greatest rise. With an increase of 4.4%, Eastern Germany’s Dresden also saw positive price development. For the coming years, ifs predicted relatively constant price development. 

For the purchase of a condominium in Germany in 2010 were paid on average € 130 900. Thus, the average purchase price per case increased by 4.2 percent. The average purchase price for a detached house was € 160,800, an increase of 1.7 percent over the previous year. 

Taken together, the prices for condos and single family homes (new and existing) together, an average 2010 price increase was observed from 2.7 percent, down from 1.5 percent last year. 

The shows on behalf of the Urban Institute conducted it’s GEWOS current study, all sales made in Germany of condominiums and single-family homes and to evaluate a total of countries and regions. 

The difference in development between condos and single family homes can be attributed to the fact that more investment properties were purchased, while single-family houses, the use of self is paramount. 

In addition to this Germany-wide trend statements, especially the various developments in the 20 evaluated regions of interest. The prices for owner-calculations, the majority of the regions is on the rise.

The largest increases – albeit at different price levels – reported in 2010 the regions Bielefeld / Paderborn (11.1 percent), Augsburg (9.4 percent) and Berlin (9.4 percent). In the region of Munich were € 227 900 and a price increase of 5.4 percent, the highest purchase prices paid for properties condominiums. 

Hamburg to Munich, the region is the region with the second-highest average prices for condominiums. In the West lead to regions Dusseldorf and Cologne, the price list. The price level of the southern regions, moving mostly in the mid to high range, where in the region Rhein-Neckar (Mannheim / Ludwigshafen) with € 117 200 for a condo is only about half the price in the Munich area is prepared to spend. 

In the east has continued, except in Berlin and Dresden in the long term positive trend (4.4 percent). The Baltic Sea coastal regions and Halle / Leipzig-Gen learned other hand, after a long period of growth the first time a decline in prices (-3.5 percent and 3.9 percent). 2      

By far the highest prices for detached houses was paid in 2010 in the Munich region-chen. € 433 500 with the purchase price was up 4.4 percent over the previous year. Only with a long margin the regions Dusseldorf, Lower Main and Middle Neckar. In the Dresden region, at 7.7 percent, the sharpest increase was observed in the market for single-family homes. With an average of € 115 900 per case, the purchase prices are still modest, however, have developed long term. 

Gave an equally big price jump, it was 7.1 percent in Berlin. Thus, the average price increases for detached houses in the Berlin region continuously since 2003. The average prices of the eight regions in the south are all above the national average. In the lowest region of the South, the region of Augsburg, Freiburg, average prices rose 3.1 percent to 188 700 €. With the exception of the Regi-on Bielefeld / Paderborn was the price for single family homes in the West robust growth. 195 100 € on average for a house here could be purchased, which compares the regions slightly above-average value. 

Deixe the German real estate property index of ifs Urban Institute, conducted since the Ba-sisjahr 1995 (= 100) rose, 2010 in West Germany from 106 to 109 points and in eastern Germany by 88 points to 93 points. The Urban Institute estimates of ifs for the next few years by a relatively constant prices. 

Some background:
On behalf of the ifs Urban Institute, the Institute evaluates for Urban, Regional and residential research GEWOS annually since 1993 for all urban and rural districts, the completed land sale contracts for condos and single family homes as well as from those contracts of affiliated money transactions. Are the basis of market information, the expert committees for property values​​, which provide all the land sale contracts.

A distinction is made not by building age, location, size and features of objects for sale, but there are average prices formed specifically for the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole, for the old and new states, for each state and for the 20 best-selling regions. To increase the validity of the study further, this year was the first time included the regions of Bielefeld / Paderborn, Munster, dysentery, Karlsruhe, Rhein-Neckar (Mannheim / Ludwigshafen), Freiburg and the Baltic Sea coast (Rostock). 

From other studies, the GEWOS study differs in that it covers all geta saturated selling cases and not only those who reported an association of certain brokers or evaluate the published sale prices that do not need with the achieved purchase price to be consistent. 

The complete study is in multiple copies, the price of 30 € including value added tax, postage and packing costs or as a PDF file for the price of 20 € including VAT at ifs Institute for urban planning, housing and construction savings system, Klingelhöferstr. 4 in 10785 Berlin, phone 030-59 00 91 60-0, fax 030-59 00 91 60-5, e-mail can be ordered zentrale@ifs-staedtebauinstitut.de 

Press Release 20/09/2011 

(by Institute of Urban Housing and Housing Finance System)

TD News International

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