Further fall in number of new German residential construction permits

New figures released by Germany’s Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) this month show that the number of construction permits for homes in Germany decreased by 1.9% from January to September compared with the same period last year. The 257,900 construction permits issued by German authorities were valid for new buildings as well as for construction measures on existing buildings, Destatis said.

 Destatis had already recorded a decline in building permits of 2.5% and 3.4% in October and September. However, the number of approved homes had been at a "high level" since 2016, it said.

Between January and September, the number of construction permits for single-family homes rose slightly by 0.5%, according to Destatis. On the other hand, the number of building permits for two-family houses fell by 1.5%.

According to Andreas Ibel, president of the German association of free real estate and housing companies (BFW), “We are particularly concerned about the decline in building permits for apartment buildings. The federal government's target of building 375,000 new apartments a year is thus becoming increasingly unattainable.”

For the current legislative period, the German government coalition of Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU and the left-of-centre SPD agreed to a target of 1.5 million new apartments by 2021.