Germany’s Two Million Apartments Remail Vacant

Many people in Germany cannot find an apartment, and again, almost two million apartments are empty, according to published data from the 2022 census.

According to these data, in May 2022, around 1.9 million apartments in the country were without tenants. In other words, 4.3 percent of housing units in Germany were empty, the Federal Statistical Office said.

At the same time, more than half of those apartments, 55 percent, were empty for more than a year, for various reasons, according to statisticians.

Only 38 percent were prepared to move in in the last three months, and the short-expected period of moving in was noticeable in the big cities, Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, with a quota of 52 to 61 percent. The owners of almost a quarter of empty apartments, 24 percent of them, planned construction work or rehabilitation, and demolition only one in 25.

About seven percent of the owners considered selling the property instead of moving in. Almost a fifth of the owners listed “something else” as the reason for the empty apartment.