In the housing policy debate around new housing, immigration, shortage of housing and urban sprawl, the issue of vacancy rarely plays a role. The vacancy rate offers important insight into the state of housing shortage in individual regions. However, a generalised view of the data alone does not help in the analysis of vacancy figures. The mutual interactions are far too complex, for example, when it comes to the regionally very different imbalance between supply and demand or migration movements from the A and B cities to more rural areas.

• Around 1.1 million people with Ukrainian citizenship were living in Germany at the end of September.
• Highest immigration rates in March, April and May with up to 375,000 people per month.
• Mostly underage and well-educated people come.

With the annual update of the forecasts by empirica and empirica regio, current data on the development of population, households, demand for new buildings and vacancies up to 2035 are now available for all districts.

A look at migration within Germany shows: The basic trends were indicated years ago. While the big cities are losing more and more in internal migration, the districts and small independent cities in Germany are gaining more and more. Another turning point could be immigration due to the war in Ukraine.

The top 7 cities in Germany show shrinking tendencies. In 2021, most metropolises again recorded negative net migration. This continues the shrinking trend of the past years. This is shown by figures from the economic and real estate data provider empirica regio.

Ever since Tesla chose Grünheide as the site for its fourth Gigafactory, it has been clear: the previously little-noticed region around the little speck-belt town of 8,000 inhabitants in the east of Berlin is now seen as one that will be boosted and transformed in many ways. Grünheide’s mayor described the Tesla settlement as “winning the lottery”.

The economic and real estate data provider empirica regio GmbH has determined the per capita residential space consumption of all German municipalities with 400 or more inhabitants. Almost 9,000 municipalities and 107 independent cities were analysed. The results show that popular holiday destinations in particular consume a lot of living space per inhabitant, but people in rural regions also have a particularly large amount of living space at their disposal. In the German metropolitan areas, on the other hand, people are moving closer together and living on less living space.

In 2008, an article in the German journal Informationen zur Raumentwicklung (Information on spatial development) posed the question Suburbanisation … and no end in sight? 1 In 2021, this question can still be asked in exactly the same way, albeit against the backdrop of a completely different housing market situation than 13 years ago. Back then, the focus was on shrinkage, whereas today it is on the growing pains of cities.