Irrespective of the expected slump in the construction industry, Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz is sticking to the goal of 400,000 new apartments per year. "It's not rocket science, generations before us have done it with 700,000 new apartments," said the SPD politician on Tuesday at the Expo Real real estate fair in Munich. According to Geywitz, the goal is higher productivity in housing construction.

This year, experts from the real estate industry initially expect a sharp decline in new construction. Jacopo Mingazzini, CEO of real estate company The Grounds Real Estate, said the number of projects being implemented is decreasing. "I've heard that this year it should be more towards 200,000 apartments instead of the 400,000 desired." The cut in housing subsidies at the beginning of the year led to an "enormous loss of trust", complained Marc Ullrich, board member of the Bauverein Breisgau, during the panel discussion. "Anyone who needs and demands living space must also provide the appropriate funding."

Summit meeting on housing planned

The grand coalition had already set itself the goal of 400,000 new apartments per year, but did not achieve it. "We never managed to actually build significantly more than 300,000 apartments because we had these capacity bottlenecks, in terms of materials, professionals, and land," admitted Geywitz. According to the German Real Estate Association, there will be a top meeting on housing construction in Berlin next week, as Association President Jürgen Michael Schick said.

Minister of Construction Geywitz named the digitalization of the entire chain of construction planning, application and execution as a means of building faster. However, she dampened expectations that a fundamental acceleration in housing construction could be achieved overnight: "It will take quite a while before we reach the goal that we can manage to expand capacity in Germany."