The growing number of migrants is starting to affect Germany’s property market as a lack of housing will inevitably lead to prices rising, according to Postbank.
The results of the bank study show that over the past 10 years real estate prices rose almost everywhere across Germany. The trend will continue during the next 15 years, RT reported.
“We expect that in the cities and regions with a growing population prices will continue to rise,” said Sigmar Liebig, a representative of the German real estate appraisers committee.
Even a 1% increase in population would send apartment prices soaring by 3.5%, and private homes—by almost 2%, according to Postbank.
The bank predicts surging property prices in 36 major German cities, assuming that by 2030 almost one million migrants will receive refugee status and stay in the country. Prices will rise most in Berlin with the cost of one square meter to go up by 4.7% for apartments and 14.5% for private homes. At the same time, prices could be more than 6% lower without the influx of migrants, according to the research.
To meet the growing demand for housing, Germany needs to build at least 350,000 new homes a year, according to Germany’s Minister of Construction Barbara Hendricks.
Experts’ figures are higher. While in many cities the amount of construction hasn’t kept up with demand, it will be necessary to build up to 450,000 houses annually in the coming years, estimates the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.
Almost a million asylum seekers have arrived in Germany since last year. This resulted in numerous anti-migrant demonstrations in the country. On Sunday, several thousand right-wing demonstrators marched through the streets of Berlin to protest Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy, chanting “Merkel must go” and “We are the people.”
Refugee Policy
The German government will stick by its existing refugee policy, a spokesman has said, after the anti-immigrant Alternative fur Deutschland made strong gains in regional elections on Sunday.
Asked if the results in three German states, where support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives dwindled, would lead to a change in policy, Steffen Seibert said: “The German government will continue to pursue its refugee policy with all its might both at home and abroad.”
AfD entered state parliaments in all three regions that voted, winning 24% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt and over 10% in Baden-Wurttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Merkel’s Christian Democrat party lost support in Baden-Württemberg–a region dominated by the CDU since the end of the second world war–and Rhineland Palatinate but remained the largest party in Saxony-Anhalt. The results suggested that German politicians increasingly appear to have two options: rally behind their chancellor, or rail against her.
