Impact of housing market transformation in Germany on affordable housing: the case of North Rhine-Westphalia

The German housing market has changed significantly since the first decade of the new millennium. A considerable amount of public sector and company-owned employee housing has been sold off, while a number of large publicly listed real estate firms have emerged. This has been particularly evident in North Rhine-Westphalia. This paper examines the consequences of these changes for the development of rental prices, especially at the lower end of the market, by analysing 300,000 advertisements for rental homes in the ten largest cities in North Rhine-Westphalia. The results show that on average, and taking quality and location into account, the least expensive rental homes are offered by larger housing organisations with co-operatives being especially well priced, while there are only moderate differences between public companies and big private companies. One explanation may be that the rent policies of large private and public providers have converged, while co-operative housing associations still provide rental homes considerably more cheaply.