New benchmark for the analysis of German real estate markets
For the first time, the GREIX provides a highly up-to-date picture of the price trends on real estate markets in 18 German cities since the 1960s to the level of individual neighborhoods. The database covers long-term trends in real estate markets and can be used to analyze developments such as rising inflation in ist historical context. Although numerous data on real estate prices are available in Germany, there is only an inaccurate overview of the trends on the real estate market.
Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy and the University of Bonn collaborated with appraisal committees (GAAs) across Germany to systematically analyze the development of real estate prices. With GREIX, ECONtribute implements a tool that enables this analysis – publicly accessible and free of charge. Via the database website, property prices can be compared transparently covering the entire time period specified to the level of individual city districts. The database is a major progress towards more transparency in the German real estate market and facilitates analyzing the German real estate market based on the highest scientific standards and highly up-to-date.
The German Real Estate Index (GREIX) is available.
Results at a glance
- Profiteers: Property owners have been able to achieve historically high asset gains in recent years. The city with the highest performance since 2000: Berlin.
- Polarization: The difference in price between the most expensive and least expensive neighborhoods within German cities has more than doubled over the past 30 years.
- Price drop: Since mid-2022, real estate prices have collapsed by almost 15 per cent in real terms in comparison with their peak.
- Forecast: Prices will continue to decline – but at a slower pace. At the end of the current quarter (Q2), prices in Germany as a whole are expected to have fallen by just under 20 per cent in real terms in comparison with their peak.
Background
The data of the appraisal committees (GAAs) cover all real estate transactions in (western) Germany over the past 60 years. The GAAs thus possess the largest and most detailed data set in Germany. With funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), researchers from the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute have been able to digitize around one million transaction records, enabling to compare them for the first time. The result: the first long-term microdata set on real estate transactions in Germany. Using state-of-the-art statistical methods, the researchers have developed a model to create indices based on highest scientific standards. These provide a comprehensive and regional picture of how housing prices have developed and evolved in 18 major German cities. Using specific regression methods, the team created quarterly housing price indices for three different market segments in each city: Multi-family houses, single-family houses and apartments.
Other German real estate indices are based on alternative data sets, which usually refer to mortgage contracts, online advertisements or appraisals. The only exception is Destatis’ national index, which is also based on GAA data, but is compiled without exchanging information with the GAAs and ensure quality and has only been compiled since the 2000s.
The database will be updated and maintained on a regular basis. Politicians, journalists and the public will thus have access to an analysis of historical, current and future trends in German real estate markets based on highest scientific standards for the first time.