German chancellor lines up fresh crisis talks with property titans
By Tom Sims, John O'Donnell and Matthias Inverardi
FRANKFURT, Aug 2 (Reuters) -German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is launching a fresh bid to tackle a property crisis as the country braces for recession and elections that could bolster the far right.
The government has scheduled a meeting of politicians, ministries and industry representatives in Hamburg on Dec. 6, two top industry officials said.
The meeting will address the housing shortage in Europe's most populous country, one exacerbated by the failure of major developers and a crash in investment and financing as real estate prices slumped.
The last such gathering in September produced a raft of government proposals but little concrete action.
"It shows something is happening," Iris Schoeberl, president of the German Property Federation representing 37,000 firms, said of the renewed effort.
"It also sends a strong signal to the people that the chancellor is tackling the issue."
Tim-Oliver Mueller, head of the German Construction Industry Federation, lamented that "much of what was discussed previously has come to nothing".
"We need concrete steps and real action," he said.
Germany's 730 billion euro property industry contributes a fifth of the country's output, eclipsing its auto sector.
Industry leaders have been pushing for changes including a cut to Germany's property sales tax, which can be 6% of the price of a home, and relaxing rules to make it cheaper to build.
The government didn't respond to a request for comment. The housing ministry said it was working to support the industry with measures such as speeding up the building approvals process.
For years, low interest rates and a strong economy fuelled a German property boom, which ended in 2022 when rampant inflation forced the European Central Bank to swiftly raise borrowing costs.
The ensuing funk resulted in aslowing of deals, stalled projects and top developers going bust. Recent data still shows an accelerating fall in building permits for apartments, and another plummet in new building starts in the first half of the year.
While the ECB's June rate cut sparked hopes of a revival, executives remain cautious.
Rolf Buch, chief executive of one of the nation's biggest landlords Vonovia, which reported another loss for the first half of the year, predicts more property companies will go bust.
Germany has failed to meet its goal of building 400,000 apartments a year as millions flock to the country to escape wars and in search of work.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has campaigned for policies to support housing, has a chance of winning state elections later this year as the popularity of Scholz's three-way coalition slips ahead of a 2025 federal vote.
"The housing shortage can lead to populists increasingly taking up the issue with supposedly simple answers," warned the German Property Federation's Schoeberl.
Scholz, who is regularly confronted about the lack of affordable housing, told one gathering in Mainz earlier this year: "We must find a way so that housing goes up where it is sought and needed."
After spending tens of billions to tackle the energy crisis and boost defence spending, Germany has little left for the property crisis, with Mueller also blaming fragmented responsibility between the federal government and the 16 states for hobbling a response.
Felix Pakleppa, chief executive of the ZDB industry association representing 35,000 building firms, said there should be subsidies and fewer energy-related regulations.
"We in Germany have become accustomed to the gold standard for technical building specifications, which has made construction projects ever more demanding and costly," he said.
Since the September meeting, the drumbeat of bad news has continued, with the collapse of Rene Benko's Signa real estate empire, which had a major footprint in Germany, one of the more notable failures.
Some banks have also come under stress while a Frankfurt skyscraper home to Germany's central bank and asset manager Deka filed for insolvency. Apollo-owned Demire also said four subsidiaries will file for insolvency after its bank refused to renegotiate a loan.
Schoeberl, meanwhile, is pushing for measures to allow developers to build quickly, and for consistently low interest loans from a government-backed bank.
"What real estate needs is trust and the ability to plan," she said.
German building slumps https://reut.rs/4d7LDT8
New building slows https://reut.rs/3zIaqiu
Home prices fall https://reut.rs/3RCoRdL
Vonovia underperforms https://reut.rs/3Yss58a
Editing by Kirsten Donovan
Aset Terkait
Berita Terbaru
Pengungkapan: Entitas XM Group menyediakan layanan khusus eksekusi dan akses ke Fasilitas Trading Online kami, yang memungkinkan Anda untuk melihat dan/atau menggunakan konten yang tersedia pada atau melalui situs, yang tidak untuk mengubah atau memperluas, serta tidak mengubah atau memperluas hal tersebut. Akses dan penggunaan ini selalu sesuai dengan: (i) Syarat dan Ketentuan; (ii) Peringatan Risiko; dan (iii) Pengungkapan Penuh. Oleh karena itu, konten disediakan hanya sebagai informasi umum. Anda juga harus ketahui bahwa konten Fasilitas Trading Online kami bukan sebagai ajakan atau tawaran untuk untuk melakukan transaksi apa pun di pasar finansial. Trading di pasar finansial mana pun melibatkan tingkat risiko yang signifikan pada modal Anda.
Semua materi yang diterbitkan di Fasilitas Trading Online kami hanya untuk tujuan edukasi/informasi dan tidak boleh mengandung nasihat dan rekomendasi finansial, pajak investasi atau trading, catatan harga trading kami, penawaran, permintaan, transaksi dalam instrumen finansial apa pun atau promo finansial untuk Anda yang tidak diminta.
Konten pihak ketiga apa pun, serta konten yang disiapkan oleh XM, seperti opini, berita, riset, analisis, harga, informasi lain atau link ke situs pihak ketiga yang tersedia "sebagaimana adanya", sebagai komentar pasar umum dan bukan menjadi nasihat investasi. Sejauh konten apa pun ditafsirkan sebagai penelitian investasi, Anda harus memperhatikan dan menerima bahwa konten tersebut tidak dimaksudkan dan belum disiapkan sesuai dengan persyaratan hukum yang dirancang untuk mempromosikan kemandirian riset investasi dan dengan demikian akan dianggap sebagai komunikasi pemasaran di bawah hukum dan peraturan yang relevan. Mohon dipastikan bahwa Anda telah membaca dan memahami Notifikasi pada Riset Investasi Non-Independen dan Peringatan Risiko kami mengenai informasi di atas, yang dapat diakses disini.
