"Real estate is becoming an ecosystem," says Henning Koch, CEO of Commerz Real AG. Everything revolves around resilience and sustainability. Not only commercial buildings, but also private residential properties are affected. The question is: How can we succeed in turning the entire real estate portfolio into a resource that helps to improve the eco-balance instead of burdening it?
Cities face major challenges when it comes to climate protection. In many places, their transformation toward climate neutrality is still proceeding too slowly. Together with the Institute for Resource Management inter 3, the Wuppertal Institute will focus on promising social innovations from the fields of construction, housing and urban development over the next five years, because technical innovations alone are not enough to achieve the goal.
Social innovations as a form of innovation in their own right have hardly been in people's awareness so far. Yet they occur at different points in our society and have a decisive influence on our lives. For example, housing concepts are changing the way we live together, teleworking and home offices are changing the way we work together, and car-sharing and barter stores are influencing the way we consume. They can be important drivers and multipliers for the climate-friendly transformation of cities. In the process, they also have the potential to increase acceptance for the necessary transformation processes among the population. However, one central question is still largely unanswered: Which social innovations really have what it takes to go mainstream?
The German government has launched an extensive program of subsidies for the renovation of existing buildings and also for new construction. Everyone is now benefiting from this - property owners and those who want to become property owners.
Anyone who wants to purchase real estate now - or even more so now - under the more difficult financing conditions caused by high interest rates would be well advised to look for older properties. They are less expensive than modernized houses, and buyers benefit considerably from refurbishment subsidies. For more information, visit www.bafa.de for individual refurbishment measures and www.kfw.de for complete refurbishments.
(Photo: © Stefan Steinbauer, Pixabay)
