Eastern German prices, rents, up by nearly 50% since 2010

A useful study published by real estate portal Immowelt.de looks carefully at price developments in real estate across Germany's eastern states since 2010, and throws up a number of surprising highlights.

The study focused on 22 eastern German cities with populations of more than 50,000 inhabitants, and used prices that were the offered prices for 124,400 properties advertised over the period on Immowelt's own web portal. Immowelt, which has now merged with Immonet, was the second or third most popular property portal in Germany over the period along with Immonet, with both trailing the market leader ImmobilienScout24.

Purchase prices for apartments rose the strongest in Dresden, Potsdam, Rostock and Weimar, at price rises of between 30% and 50% over the period. In 15 of 22 eastern German cities, the prices for apartments have risen at a much faster clip than inflation (up 6.9%).

Not surprisingly the city where prices have risen the most is Berlin, up 88% to an average price of €3,171 per sqm. Dresden follows with 49%, where prices now average €1,955 per sqm. Prices in Potsdam are an average of €2,867 per sqm, in Rostock €2,245 per sqm, Leipzig at €1,020 and Stralsund at €1,957 (with both these latter cities seeing price rises of 33% in the period.)

Two regionally important cities about the same distance from Berlin are Neubrandenburg to the north and Cottbus, to the south, which also showed strength. Neubrandenburg now costs €1,413 per sqm on average, up 38%, while Cottbus has risen 36% to €1,458 per sqm. The three Thuringian cities of Erfurt (€1,574 up 29%), Weimar (€1,568, up 30%) and Jena (€2,105 up 15%) have shown more modest growth, as have Halle (€1,053 up 11%) and Magdeburg (€846, up 20%)

Cities with falling prices have been Chemnitz (€700, down 15%), Zwickau (€566, down 16%) and Plauen (€404, down 23%).

Separately, on the residential rental side, Immowelt surveyed 268,000 apartment listings in 23 eastern German cities over the same five-year period. Rents in three-quarters of the region's largest cities increased ahead of the 6.9% inflation rate over the period.

Berlin led the field with advertised rents up by 40% (to €9.10/sqm/month). The strongest growth in advertised rents in eastern Germany (excluding Berlin) was seen in Dresden, at 20% (€7.10/sqm/month) and Leipzig (€5.90/sqm/month). In Erfurt (€6.90/sqm/month) and Weimar (€7.00/sqm/month), advertised rents rose by 19%. Outside the large cities currently enjoying strong economic growth, rents and prices in the remainder of eastern Germany have effectively stagnated since 2010, often at very modest levels.