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Our recent reports on Vonovia, LEG and GREIX examined what German housing is worth. The latest rental data asks a different question: what does it cost to secure an apartment when fewer tenants can afford to move and fewer homes are reaching the market?
Three respected sources produce different answers. The Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (VdP), drawing on transaction and rental data supplied through more than 700 financial institutions, recorded new-tenancy rents for multi-family housing rising 3.2% year-on-year in Q2 2026. JLL, analysing approximately 32,000 rental listings across eight major cities during the first half, found asking rents up 3%, compared with 6.8% a year earlier. New-build rents in those cities barely moved, rising 0.5%. The German Economic Institute's IW Housing Index, meanwhile, put national advertised-rent growth at 4% in the second quarter, comfortably ahead of inflation at 2.6%.
The figures are not contradictory because they do not measure precisely the same thing. The VdP records rents agreed in new tenancies nationally; JLL and IW track advertised asking rents, with JLL restricted to eight major cities and covering six months rather than one quarter. All three nevertheless show rents continuing to rise, while the VdP and JLL figures indicate that the pace of growth is slowing.
That does not mean the rental market is becoming easier. The more revealing development lies not in the price of the apartments being advertised, but in how few are reaching the market at all.
Why rental supply is disappearing
According to IW, the number of rental listings nationwide remains almost 12% below its level at the beginning of 2022. In some cities, the contraction is far more severe: advertised supply has fallen 57% in Hamburg, 43% in Frankfurt and 40% in Leipzig. Berlin is the major exception, although IW cautions that its 43% increase reflects an unusually depressed starting point and should not be read as evidence of plentiful supply.
The shortage is not caused solely by inadequate construction. Existing tenants are increasingly reluctant to move because doing so would mean surrendering an in-place rent well below the price of another apartment on the open market. "Residential mobility is too low — existing housing stock is not being utilised to its full potential," says IW property economist Pekka Sagner. He warns that tighter rental regulation risks reinforcing the same effect, widening the gap between existing and new-tenancy rents and giving sitting tenants an even stronger financial incentive to stay put. That lock-in produces an awkward market: protecting existing tenants from steep increases reduces availability for everyone else, concentrating the burden on households with no choice but to enter the market afresh.
Berlin's newly published Mietspiegel, out at the end of May, has already been followed by a wave of rent-increase notices — and a corresponding surge in tenants seeking advice. "Over the past two weeks, there has been a significant increase in the number of tenants contacting us to have rent increase demands reviewed," says Wibke Werner, managing director of the Berlin Tenants' Association. Her advice is to challenge rather than simply accept: "Objecting to a rent increase is not grounds for termination if it is incorrect — you should feel free to stand your ground."
Where the pressure concentrates
JLL's figures show where that squeeze is sharpest. Across its eight cities, asking rents in the cheapest segment rose 5.5% during the first half, compared with just 2.3% at the premium end. "Willingness to pay at the upper end of the market is increasingly reaching its limits," says JLL Living Research director Sören Gröbel. "Affordability is becoming the determining factor for rent growth." Average asking-rent growth may be moderating, but competition for lower-priced apartments is intensifying — and the widening gap between existing and new-tenancy rents doesn't translate automatically into equivalent portfolio income for landlords, since regulation, turnover and affordability ceilings all determine how much of that theoretical upside is actually collectible.
The longer-term numbers explain why even a slowdown remains politically combustible. DGB-commissioned research covering Germany's 40 largest cities found asking rents up 51% over the past decade, including 76.9% in Berlin and 83% in Rostock. In Frankfurt, Immoconcept calculates asking rents have risen 47% since 2016 against gross wage growth of roughly 30% over the same period.
REFIRE: Across the different measures, rent growth is slowing. The rental market itself is not easing. Fewer apartments are being advertised, sitting tenants have growing incentives not to move, and the cheapest available homes are recording the strongest increases. For landlords, that confirms the depth of underlying demand but also the limits on converting scarcity into income. For tenants, a slower rise in the price of something increasingly difficult to find offers rather less relief than the headline suggests.
Read our recent reports on Vonovia, LEG and GREIX here:
German housing recovers faster than the capital behind it
LEG's 62% discount to NAV puts property investment to the test