Berlin rental prices rose by ‘almost a third’ in three months

Berlin is now the second most expensive city in Germany after Munich, as rents rose by almost 30 percent in just three months.

Published: 9 March 2023 11:59 CET

View of the TV Tower, the Berlin Cathedral and the Red City Hall at sunset from the dome of the Reichstag building. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Philipp Znidar

A recent survey by the housing portal Immowelt has shown that the momentum in the rental market in Germany is continuing to increase, and nowhere more so than in the capital.

Since November 2022, the average asking prices for new rental contracts increased by 27 percent: from €9.86 to €12.55 per square metre.

Before this sharp increase, Berlin was in the middle of the price ranking for rents in German cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants. Then, in December, the average rental cost per square metre exceeded €10.

According to the latest available statistics from 2021, the most expensive Berlin district was Mitte, where rents cost on average €14 per square metre. This was followed by Friedrichschain-Kreuzberg (€13.52) and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf (€13.29)

The cheapest district was Spandau (€8.22).

Why are rental prices increasing so much in Berlin?

According to Immowelt, there are several reasons for the rental cost spike in Berlin. Firstly, the population has been growing for years due to immigration.

According to the real estate portal, almost 140,000 more people were living in the capital at the end of December last year than five years ago, and the demand for housing has also increased due to the war in Ukraine.

The high interest rates and rising building costs are also a factor. As a result, too few new living spaces are currently being built in the capital. There are also continuing catch-up effects of the failed rental-cap policy – when the German Federal Constitutional court overturned a price cap on rents in the city in 2021.

Since then, apartments that were rented at lower prices have since been offered at significantly higher rates for new leases.

However, Immowelt pointed out that the rental price spike in Berlin is an outlier among all the cities surveyed and the jump in rents could also be a seasonal effect, the momentum of which may weaken again in the course of the year.

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