PRESS RELEASE
12th ACCENTRO Homeownership Report

East German Housing Markets Keep Catching up

• Leipzig emerges as busiest housing market
• Brisk new-build housing sales in smaller cities

Berlin, 25. September 2019 - While the number of condominium sales in the major German cities declined overall in 2018, average selling prices increased noticeably, as the ACCENTRO Homeownership Report 2019 shows. Another finding is that the performance of several cities in the East German states was particularly positive.

Fast Price Hikes in Halle, Chemnitz and Rostock

The fastest price growth rates among the major cities were registered in Halle (Saale) in Saxony-Anhalt with an increase of 35.56 percent over prior year. The city of Jena in Thuringia ranks third with a growth of 28.48 percent, while yet another outperforming city is Chemnitz with a rate of 17.56 percent. It should be remembered that Chemnitz had already been among the big winners of last year's report after scoring a price growth of 19.74 percent. The price growth in this city in Saxony therefore sustained its upward trend. Another East German city that made it into the top ten cities with the fastest price growth in 2018 was the Rostock, the most populous city in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Prices also continued to climb in Cottbus at a rate of 8.40 percent in 2018, down from a surge of 18.23 percent the previous year.

Leipzig among the Busiest Housing Markets in East Germany and Nationwide

As far as sales volume goes, Leipzig has stayed right behind the seven Class A cities in rank eight. The Saxon city actually outperforms some of the Big Seven cities in regard to the number of transactions, and it ranks fifth nationwide by total number of condominiums sold. "Saxony's largest city consolidated its position as one of the most important housing markets in Germany, and the above-average level of activity is one of the aspects reflecting the fact," elaborated Jacopo Mingazzini, CEO of ACCENTRO Real Estate AG.
Judging by sales per 1,000 residents, Leipzig is now in rank seven, having ranked second the previous year.

New-Build Construction Doing Better in Smaller Cities

Leipzig also shows a similarity to the Big Seven cities that it trails in the new-build segment as it matches the unambiguously negative trend of most Class A cities. The number of new-build flats declined by 11.58 percent in Leipzig since 2017. New-build housing sales also decreased in Dresden, the state capital of Saxony, dropping to 1,205. But unlike in Leipzig, new-build construction activities are disproportionately high in Dresden. In fact, Dresden made fifth place in this category, behind Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt am Main.
Other cities that outperformed included Chemnitz (Saxony) and Cottbus (Brandenburg), which continued their brisk price growth form the previous year. High scores in terms of new-build housing sales, revenues and price growth were also identified for Jena (Thuringia) Halle/Saale (Saxony-Anhalt) and Rostock (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) in 2018.

About the ACCENTRO Homeownership Report

This year's edition marks the twelfth time that ACCENTRO Real Estate AG published its Homeownership Report. The analysis is based on residential property sales transacted in all of Germany's 82 major cities during the reporting year of 2018. A significant distinction that sets the report apart from similar publications, most of which rely on expert appraisals or on analyses of supply-side data, is that it draws on the data of the cities' property valuation committees.

Detailed findings of the ACCENTRO Homeownership Report on Germany's ten most populous cities and the trends of the past eleven years are also available online in the ACCENTRO database, and can be retrieved in the form of selective drilldowns:

About ACCENTRO Real Estate AG

ACCENTRO Real Estate AG is Germany's market leader in housing privatisations. In addition to its home market of Berlin, the company focuses on auspicious metro regions such as Hamburg, Rhine-Ruhr, Rhine-Main and Leipzig. In its Privatisation business unit, ACCENTRO retails condominiums from its proprietary portfolio to owner-occupiers and buy-to-let investors or-bundled into portfolios-to institutional investors. In its Services & Ventures business unit, ACCENTRO sells apartments on behalf of investors and property developers-including through equity investments in its own right within the framework of joint ventures. ACCENTRO Real Estate AG is listed on the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (German securities code number WKN: A0KFKB, ISIN: DE000A0KFKB3).

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