Property prices fluctuate, number of sales low
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The property market has changed significantly since 2022. Property prices have fallen and are currently fluctuating, while the number of property sales has fallen significantly. The German Real Estate Index (GREIX) is a research project that aims to find out more about the dynamics of the property markets.
As a rule, it is mainly the large internet portals on which private and commercial property providers present their offers that report on the state of the property market. The statements refer to the asking prices, not the prices actually realised. Detailed statements on the property market are also provided by the research departments of large property companies. The German Real Estate Index (GREIX) pursues a different objective. It is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and has been conducted in cooperation with the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) since June 2023.
Housing markets play a central role in the macroeconomic context, but the way they function has by no means been fully researched. In order to find out more about this, the project researchers are collecting and compiling very detailed data sets on the housing markets. To this end, the purchase price collections of the expert committees, which contain notarised sales prices, are analysed according to current scientific standards. All data for currently 19 cities and their neighbourhoods are freely available at www.greix.de.
According to the GREIX analysis, property prices were volatile in the first quarter of 2024. The stabilisation of the previous quarter is continuing and the decline in prices is slowing. However, there are major differences depending on the region and residential segment.
"It is still too early to call a bottom in the German property market. Prices for condominiums and single-family homes are continuing to stabilise and tend to move sideways. Regionally, however, the markets are quite volatile and there are upward and downward deviations, which is probably also due to the still low number of transactions," says Moritz Schularick, President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
(Photo: © Absolut Vision, Gino Crescoli, Pixabay)