Student rent prices in Germany surge as foreign student numbers soar

A recent report by the Germany’s Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne, which tracks the residential sector very closely, demonstrates how rental price for apartments in university cities across Germany have increased by up to 67.3% since 2010.

In Berlin, student rent prices rose last year by 10%, against a background where property prices as a whole rose by almost 21% in the city, according to property consultancy Knight Frank.

Supply and current demand are seriously out of kilter in the student housing sector, leading to the hefty rent hikes. University statistics show that Germany is now three years ahead of its own schedule for attracting 350,000 international students to study in the country by 2020. Last winter semester the actual figure achieved was 358,895.

While Berlin has seen the highest rent hikes, the highest rents in absolute terms are in Munich, where students pay an average of €600 per month, double the national average. The next highest is Frankfurt, where students can expect to pay €488 for accommodation. According to the IW, the most favourable rents are still to be found in cities such as Leipzig, Jena, Greifswald, Kiel, Göttingen and Aachen.

Figures from the Deutsches Studentenwerk (German Association for Student Affairs), show that German students on average have €918 per month to live on, hence are spending more than 50% of their available income on accommodation in Frankfurt and Munich. And, at the rate rents are rising in Berlin, this threshold is also likely to be broken shortly.

Meanwhile The Student Hotel (TSH), the student hotel chain and co-working space founded by Scotsman Charlie McGregor, is opening its first German hotel on Prager Strasse in Dresden at the end of November.

The hotel will have 306 rooms with co-living and co-working spaces, and in addition to accommodation for normal hotel guests, the former Ibis Hotel property is also offering rooms for students to let for a semester or an entire year.

TSH CEO Charlie MacGregor says that Dresden is the perfect starting point for its German expansion, with the company’s next plans including a hotel near Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Further openings in Bologna and Madrid are planned for 2019; openings planned for 2020 include Florence, Paris, Porto, Rome, Delft, and Vienna. TSH says it intends to own a total of 65 properties in European cities over the next five years.