Housing completions in Europe: the number of new residential units will not increase until 2004

According to the estimates of the Ifo Institute and its partner institutes in the EUROCONSTRUCT network, the number of housing completions in new residential units, which had already declined strongly in 2001 (by about 115 000 units), will continue to fall during the current year by about 100 000 units to 1.9 million dwellings and will stabilise in 2003 at this level. Not until 2004 can a slight recovery be expected. The completion numbers will decrease in both new building categories at approximately the same pace: whereas single family homes will bottom out already by 2002, the downward trend in apartment buildings will continue until 2003. The housing stock will increase in the EUROCONSTRUCT area (15 Western and four Central and Eastern European countries) to almost 200 million units by 2004, but the ratio of dwellings per household will hardly increase since the number of the households will expand at approximately the same pace. Both the residential construction intensity as well as the home building coefficient - the size-adjusted indicator for residential construction activity in Europe - will clearly decline up to 2003.