Building land is getting scarcer in the city of Kassel – and therefore more expensive. Land prices have risen by an average of € 60 per square meter over the past five years. If one square meter of building-ready residential land cost 133 euros on average in 2013, it was 193 euros in 2017.
“This is dramatic, because it also raises the prices for housing,” says university professor Stefan Rettich of the Department of Architecture, Urban and Landscape Planning of the University of Kassel. Since the price of land accounts for the lion’s share of the construction cost increase, it will be more difficult to create affordable housing. For six years, the purchase prices in Kassel go up. This is particularly extreme in the market of detached single-family homes. For such a house in 2017 an average of 358,000 euros were due. In 2011, the value was still 200,000 euros. The prices for the classic home have climbed by 79 percent in six years.
Radish sounds an alarm: The municipalities must intervene so that speculation in the soil does not get out of hand. He points out that in major cities such as Kassel, land prices in the years 2011 to 2014 have risen by 16 percent in the national average. In cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants even 31 percent. In Kassel, too, local politics are needed to dampen the skyrocketing property prices with instruments such as hereditary building law.
Kassel City Councilor Christof Nolda (Green) speaks of “moderate housing costs in the federal comparison” in Kassel. This is a location advantage. To ensure this in the long term, it is important to build new apartments. The housing construction in Kassel “intensively supported by active project support and self-initiated.
Source: HNA dated 30.07.2018, JBG Reserach.
