GREIX city districts 2023 — Cologne city center twice as expensive as outer districts, smallest price differences in Stuttgart

The GREIX is a joint project of the local expert committees (Gutachterausschüsse), ECONtribute, and the Kiel Institute. The index is based on transaction datasets from the expert committees, which rely on notarial certified contracts. Currently covering 19 cities, all data is openly accessible at www.greix.de.

The largest price differences for apartments between the most expensive and least expensive districts are in Cologne (Cologne Innenstadt vs. Cologne Porz) and Hamburg (Hamburg North vs. Hamburg Harburg). The GREIX evaluation does not always run along the official city districts but combines similar residential areas in order to have more transactions and thus better data quality.

In the two cities mentioned, buyers paid almost twice the price per square meter for the more popular district compared to outer neighborhoods in 2023. In Cologne, for example, the square meter price is around EUR 5,600/m² in the city center compared to EUR 2,800/m²in Porz. In Berlin, the price premium for the most expensive district was similarly high at 90 percent (Berlin Mitte vs. Berlin West).

The prices gap is closest in Stuttgart, but even there, a noticeable gap exists. In 2023, a square meter in the most expensive district costs approximately 35 percent more than in the cheapest one (Stuttgart Mitte-Nord EUR 5,200/m² vs. Stuttgart Neckar-Ost EUR 3,800/m²).

Price trends in individual districts: mixed picture

“The housing situation in German cities remains tense, even though prices have fallen by almost 10 percent on average compared to 2022. For normal earners, apartments in central, well-connected locations are hardly affordable anymore. This is a particular problem when it comes to attracting skilled workers from Germany and abroad to relocate. Urban planners could remedy this by improving connections to the less popular and in many cases still affordable outer districts,” says Jonas Zdrzalek, Kiel Institute Researcher and project manager for GREIX.

The within-city comparison also shows that practically all cities offer relatively affordable alternatives to the expensive, mostly central locations for potential buyers. In the cheapest districts, prices per square meter in all major cities are below the GREIX average for 19 cities, which is around EUR 5,000/m². The exception is Munich. Here, the price per square meter in 2023 in the cheapest district, Perlach-Berg am Laim, at EUR 7,200/m², exceeds the price per square meter of the most expensive district in all other major German cities. In Munich's most expensive district, Altstadt-Maxvorstadt, the average price per square meter is EUR 12,100.

Note: For Munich, latest data originates from the 3^rd quarter 2023.

Looking at price trends in individual districts compared to the previous year, the picture is mixed and no pattern is discernible. In Düsseldorf, for example, prices for apartments were most stable in the pricy Unterbilk-Friedrichsstadt district and fell most significantly in the less expensive Bilk-Oberbilk district.

In Frankfurt a.M., the situation is exactly the opposite: the inexpensive North-West district on the outskirts of the city was the most stable in terms of value, while the expensive inner-city district of Mitte-West recorded had the highest loss.

From a historical perspective, the price gap between the most and the less expensive neighborhoods has widened significantly over the last 20 years.  But the price ratio has been slightly declining for a good 10 years, as prices in less popular locations have also noticeably increased.

In the 1990s, the price per square meter in the most expensive district of a city was on average around 30 percent higher than in the cheapest. 2023, the price premium was around 70 percent. This means that the price range has more than doubled since the 1990s.

Price changes in GREIX data are calculated based on index values using the hedonic regression method. This mitigates price distortions that often occur when using average prices per square meter. For instance, the sale of a considerable number of high-priced properties, attributed to factors such as larger size, prime location, or superior condition, can inflate average prices per square meter. However, such fluctuations may not reflect a general increase in real estate value. By calculating an index, specific property characteristics do not cause upward or downward distortions in the price trend.

Displaying the average price per square meter provides insight into the local price level. However, the actual value of a property depends on its unique attributes and may vary significantly.