New construction and conversion boom of apartments continues

For eight years, the number of building permits has risen steadily in Germany. The trend is not only to be seen in newly erected residential buildings, but is also fueled by intensive refurbishment and reconstruction measures.

As reported by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) a few days ago, 2016 was again a good year for the construction industry. A total of 375,000 apartments were approved last year, an increase of 21.6 percent compared to 2015. In absolute terms, this is an increase of 66,700 building permits. This is a positive trend in the construction industry since 2009 and reaches a level that was last approved in 1999 with 440,800 approved apartments.

The largest gain of 26.6 percent was accounted for by the building permits for apartments in multi-family houses. Two-family dwellings also registered growth of 13.2%, while the number of approved single-family houses remained almost constant. The number of approved apartments created by conversion and removal measures was 28.8 per cent higher than in the previous year, with a 52,300 units in 2016. A higher number of permits for housing units realized by the renovation and conversion of existing buildings had been made in 1998.