German Federal Statistical Office

Positive development in German residential construction continues in 2019

In 2019, 293 000 dwellings were completed in Germany. The last time a higher number of dwellings was completed was in 2001 (326 600). As further reported by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), this was an increase of 2.0% or 5 700 completed dwellings over the previous year. The positive development since 2011 thus continued.

At 360 600, the number of building permits in 2019 was 4.0% higher than in the previous year and thus still significantly higher than the number of building completions. This led to a surplus of approved but not yet completed dwellings totalling 740 400. The increase in the construction backlog, which has continued since 2008, thus continued in 2019 and reached its highest level since 1998 (771 400).

Of the dwellings completed in 2019, 255 900 were newbuilds in residential buildings (+1.8% compared to 2018). This increase resulted from the completion of dwellings in multi-family houses (+6.0%) and in detached houses (+0.4%). The number of completions of dwellings in semi-detached houses fell by 2.8%.

For the new non-residential buildings completed in 2019, the amount of space converted decreased by 0.1% to 187.8 mill. m³ compared to 2018. This decrease is due to a decline in the number of non-public building owners (–1.8%). There was an increase among public building owners (+18.4%).

Destatis | Federal Statistical Office
www.destatis.de