The consequences of the demographic change on the demand for personal living space in Germany

Demographic change is dramatically transforming the German society: the ratio of young to old and of the gainfully employed to pensioners is shifting in favor of older persons. In the coming decades this development causes a substantial macroeconomic structural transfor-mation affecting all of the important markets in Germany. For example the labor market will lack young workers, the product markets will have to adjust to structurally changed consumer demands and on the capital market, savings behavior and the demand for productive in-vestments will be changing. With respect to the real estate market the change in the age structure and the regional distribution of the population will affect the demand for personal living space.Besides the macroeconomic dimension, the demand for personal living space is determined by social factors (e.g. more “living apart together” relationships increase the demand for smaller flats in the metropolitan areas), demographic factors (old people demand other hous-ing as young) and individual preferences (buying vs. renting properties). The research pro-posal aims at providing forecasts of the age specific demand of personal living space for Germany until 2030. The analysis will use data of the German Socio-Economic Panel, a lon-gitudinal panel dataset of the population in Germany. The analysis will feature a functional data model with time series coefficients, which are used to model the age-specific demand for living space. This model will be forecasted up to the year 2030. The results provide an insight on the challenges of the demographic transition in Germany with respect to the real estate market. The presentation will focus especially on the economic consequences of the aging society in Germany on the demand for personal living space.