Der Zusammenhang zwischen Wohnungsgröße und Miethöhe in Deutschland und dessen Einfluss auf die Projektentwicklung

The development of rental prices on the German housing market has led to regulatory intervention by the legislator in recent years to limit price increases. Nevertheless, prices are increasing and are confronting market players with challenges. In particular, project developers in the residential construction sector, who have to anticipate future demand in their developments, have to decide which apartment sizes will be in demand in the future and what influence the development of different apartment sizes will have on their earnings. This study takes up this aspect, which has so far only been treated to a limited extent in the literature. The trend in the development of apartment sizes at both federal and municipal level will be investigated using official statistics and the development of income and costs will be analyzed with the help of rental price statistics, supply data and expert interviews. The determined trend of the apartment size development towards smaller apartments implies an investigation of the resulting consequences. The analysis of rental price statistics and rental ads shows that this is accompanied by higher revenues per square meter of living space. The analysis of size effects on the calculation of project developers shows that especially the space efficiency and certain items of the construction costs should be given increased attention at an early stage. This suggests in combination with the analysis of the rents the development of smaller apartments under careful consideration of the constraints of the individual project.