The Impact Of Demography On The Housing Affordability In Germany

The change in demography which means for Europe less children, longer lifes and a shrinking population has major impact on everydays life. Especially in Germany will these developement cause big changes in population, public social system and the labor market. The impact of demography on real estate prices has been investigated especially for the US in the sence of Mankiw and Weil (1988). A special case for the German real estate market is the fact, that just 43% of all households are owners ñ the rest, more than 50% are renters who are not at first in the deveopment of the German real estate prices but of rents. Therefore will this paper concentrate on the question if housing affordability for renter households will also be impact by the strong demoraphic changes in German population. At first, under a theoretical investigation does it seems like, the situation for renters, especially in big cities and metropol regions will become worse, under the aspect of reurbanisation even if the population will shrink. In a second step will the empirical part show how the affordability of rental living space is influenced by demography in general, to verify the theoretical hypothesis. One result in the empircal work is, that especially the character of the labor market a strong influence on the affordability situation of a city has.