Housing And Urban Development : Germany

Housing. Living accommodation in Germany can be anything from a small single room or a self-contained flat to a single-family house or a mansion. There are about 35.9 million dwellings, over 28.9 million of them in the old federal states. A 1993 survey indicated that roughly 41.7 percent of the dwellings in the west were occupied by the owners themselves; 58.3 percent were rented. In the new federal states the figures were 27 percent and 73 percent, respectively. The overwhelming majority of flats in multiple dwellings are rented. Since the end of the 1970s, condominiums have become increasingly popular and meanwhile account for 7.1 percent of all inhabited dwellings. The majority of condominiums (56.7 percent), however, serve as investments and are consequently rented out.

In 1993, 1 7.5 percent of rented flats in the western states were subsidized by the government. This “social housing” is intended for large families, the disabled, the elderly and people with low incomes.