It is possible to create affordable living space

In recent decades, housing supply has increasingly been left to the market. The problem of rising demand and falling supply of affordable housing exists today more than ever. However, there are effective housing policy strategies to counteract this shortage.

Even after the years of the property boom, the issue of housing shortages is a persistent topic in society. Simplistic attributions of causes, such as pointing to high refugee numbers, do not help. The main reason cited for the housing shortage is the lack of construction activity, but there are several reasons, reports the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Freiburg: the population in Germany has been rising for around ten years, particularly in prosperous regions and large cities. Social developments, such as the expansion of urban lifestyles, the trend towards small, mobile households and more frequent changes of residence, are due to professional flexibility. As a result, the number of households requiring more housing is increasing overall.

The fact that residential construction is no longer able to meet the rising demand also has to do with the comparatively long lead time between the construction decision and handover for use. The ever faster changing framework conditions for construction projects, such as financing, interest rate trends, climate change and housing requirements, are also making it more difficult to match supply and demand.

The general conditions for affordable housing need to be improved. This requires active land and property management by local authorities, which can contribute to more living space through redensification and denser urban construction. By using pre-emptive rights to purchase land, local authorities can expand their land portfolio and organise residential development.

Prof. Dr phil. Martin Becker, Professor of Urban and Neighbourhood Development, also advocates the reintroduction of non-profit status for municipal, cooperative and other non-profit housing associations. With the permanent provision and maintenance of publicly subsidised and publicly managed housing stock, a sustainable effect could be achieved, as has long been the case in other European countries such as Austria and France.

(Graphic: © Jarmoluk, Pixabay)