FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The conversion of vacant offices can create thousands of apartments in major cities and noticeably alleviate the housing shortage there. This is shown by calculations by the real estate specialist Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), which have been made available to Deutsche Presse-Agentur. According to these calculations, unused office space offers the potential for around 11,300 apartments in Germany's seven largest cities. "Around one fifth of the current demand for housing could be met by converting offices," says Helge Scheunemann, research expert at JLL Germany. In some places, a particularly high proportion of demand could be met with conversions, for example in Düsseldorf (57%), Stuttgart (51%) and Frankfurt (34%). There are many office spaces suitable for conversion there.

With the trend towards working from home, many office spaces are unused. According to JLL, the office vacancy rate in the seven major cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Koln, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf amounted to around 5.64 million square meters at the end of 2023, 2.68 million of which were outside sought-after A-locations, where re-letting is comparatively easy.

On the other hand, there is a severe housing shortage in Germany. According to estimates by the German Property Federation (ZIA), there will be a shortage of 600,000 apartments this year, rising to 830,000 by 2027. Due to the rise in interest rates and construction costs, residential construction is in crisis and the traffic light government's target of 400,000 apartments is out of reach.

Nevertheless, the conversion of offices has played a relatively minor role so far, said Scheunemann. "Office locations are not the same as residential locations". What is needed, for example, are connections to schools, local transport, kindergartens, stores and parks. In addition, conversions are expensive and time-consuming due to increased construction costs./als/DP/mis