Recent Release|27 July 2023

The furnished rental housing market in Germany

Economic Consulting Team

Oxford Economics

The furnished housing market has long been perceived as an insignificant market segment. Our research shows that in 2022 about 14% of renters in Germany lived in furnished apartments. In addition, the market segment is growing. The share of listings for furnished apartments as a share of all rental apartment listings has risen by 45% between January 2013 and January 2022.

As furnished rental apartments also fall under the so-called German rental brake (“Mietpreisbremse”), the German Federal Ministry of Justice commissioned Oxford Economics to investigate the German furnished rental housing market and the application of the rental break. The regulation was supposed to slow the sharp rises in rents in Germany over the past decades due to tightened housing markets.

We find that:

• the furnished rental market is a relevant market segment in Germany,
• the market for renting out furnished apartments for temporary use has grown in particular,
• landlords did not systematically furnish their apartments to avoid the rental brake,
• proceedings that involve rent regulation of furnished apartments under the application of the rental break are quite rare, and
• exemptions from the rental brake as well as the calculation of the furnishing markup are not defined well enough to be correctly applied by market participants.

We even calculate the average furnishing markup using an econometric matching technique. According to our calculations, the average furnishing markup between 2007 and 2018 in the public listings database ranged between €3.53 per m² and €7.04 per m².

The experts behind the research

Our economic consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. Lead consultants on this project were:

Johanna Neuhoff

Associate Director of Economic Consulting, Continental Europe

Jan Sun

Senior Economist, Economic Impact

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