Topic Real Estate and Housing

War, Housing Rents, and Free Market: A Case of Berlin's Rental Housing Market during the World War I

Before the World War I, the urban rental housing market in Germany could be described as a free and competitive market. The government hardly interfered in the relationships between the landlords and ten- ants. The rents were set freely. During the World War I, the market was hit by several violent shocks. The outbreak of the war led initially to a huge outflow of men from cities to the fronts. Towards ...

Speculative Price Bubbles in Urban Housing Markets in Germany

The surge in the German house prices starting in 2010 raised fears about the emergence of a speculative bubble. Given a local nature of housing markets, it is not clear to what extent the bubble, if any, is spread across different cities. In this paper, we test for speculative house price bubbles in 127 large German cities over the last 20 years. Along with testing bubbles for each city separately, ...

Improved Energy Efficiency: Vital for Energy Transition and Stimulus for Economic Growth

As part of the energy transition process, the German government has set far-reaching energy efficiency targets, including doubling the annual rate of building renovation to upgrade energy performance from one to two percent. DIW Berlin has estimated the additional energy-savings-related investment required to meet these targets and analyzed the impact this could have on the economy. In the long term, ...

Energy Upgrades: The Longer You Wait, the Harder It Gets: Seven Questions to Dietmar Edler

Noise Expectations and House Prices: The Reaction of Property Prices to an Airport Expansion

We examine the effects of an airport expansion on the prices of houses and apartments located under the planned flight paths. We focus on the role of expectations of aircraft noise during the expansion of Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. The publication of the flight paths can be seen as an exogenous event. It provides local residents and potential home buyers with reliable information in ...

Business Confidence and Forecasting of Housing Prices and Rents in Large German Cities

In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting ability of 115 indicators to predict the housing prices and rents in 71 German cities. Above all, we are interested in whether the local business confidence indicators can allow substantially improving the forecasts, given the local nature of the real-estate markets. The forecast accuracy of different predictors is tested in a framework of a quasi out-of-sample ...

The Market Value of Energy Efficiency in Buildings and the Mode of Tenure

Concerns about global warming and growing scarcity of fossile fuels require substantial changes in energy consumption patterns and energy systems, as targeted by many countries around the world. One key element to achieve such transformation is to increase energy efficiency of the housing stock. In this context, it is frequently argued that private investments are too low in the light of the potential ...

Similar Challenges - Different Responses: Housing Policy in Germany and Russia between the Two World Wars

The World War I played a key role in shaping modern housing policy. While in the pre-War time virtually no housing policy existed, the beginning of hostilities led to an almost immediate and comprehensive state intervention in the housing market, particularly among those engaged in the war. Despite initially similar conditions and challenges induced by the war, housing policy was carried out in different ...

Wohnsituation von Migrantenhaushalten: eine Analyse mit Blick auf den Effekt der Mietpreisbenachteiligung

In this paper a descriptive overview of the housing situation of immigrants in Germany is combined with a multivariate analysis on potential effects of rental price discrimination for specific groups of immigrants. The driving research question is, whether immigrants systematically pay higher rents for comparable flats. Utilizing data from the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) different variables ...

Small Might Be Beautiful, but Bigger Performs Better: Scale Economies in "Green" Refurbishments of Apartment Housing

The energy efficiency of the residential housing stock plays a key role in strategies to mitigate climate change and global warming. In this context, it is frequently argued that private investment and the quality of thermal upgrades is too low in the light of the challenges faced and the potential energy cost savings. While many authors address the potential barriers for investors to increase energy ...