Germany Approved 148,800 Homes in Seven Months, but July's Gain Shrank to 1.9%

Germany approved 22,500 dwellings in July, up 1.9% on the year, while the January to July total reached 148,800, up 12.9%. The monthly pace has nearly stopped.

Germany approved 22,500 dwellings in July 2026, just 1.9% more than a year earlier — an increase of 400 units. The cumulative January to July total reached 148,800, up 12.9% or 17,000 dwellings. The distance between those two rates is the story: the German permit recovery is still running on the year, but the monthly pace has almost stopped.

Three quarters of July's increase came from existing buildings

Of the 400 extra dwellings approved in July, 300 came from measures on existing buildings, a category that rose 7.0% to 4,100. Permits in new residential buildings rose only 0.8%, or 100 dwellings, to 18,400. For a single month that is a striking composition: the German permit count grew almost entirely through conversions, extensions and roof build-outs rather than new construction. The release compares July only with July 2025 and publishes no comparison with June, a limit worth respecting rather than filling in.

The apartment block is carrying the year

Across January to July, Mehrfamilienhäuser — multi-family buildings — accounted for 79,700 approved dwellings, up 15.1% or 10,500 units. That single category supplied roughly 62% of the entire 17,000-dwelling increase. Single-family houses reached 27,900, up 9.7% or 2,500; conversions in existing buildings 24,900, up 8.9% or 2,000; and non-residential buildings containing dwellings 2,700, up 25.0% or 500. Two-family houses grew fastest in percentage terms at 25.0%, but that is 1,800 dwellings taking the category to 8,900 — the same growth rate as the non-residential category, which added only 500.

Permits are rising into a market where prices have not

Glopra's German row, a High-confidence entry, puts existing apartments at 3,066 dollars per square metre with asking rents of 10.40 dollars per square metre a month, both from the ImmoScout24 WohnBarometer for the second quarter of 2026. That works out at a gross yield of 4.07%, or 3.08% after the 24.35% effective tax on a non-resident's rental income. Round-trip transaction costs of 12.3% are among the heaviest in Western Europe.

The longer series explains why a permit revival is not automatically a price revival. German prices rose 1.4% in euros over twelve months and 42.7% over ten years, but across the past five years they are down 0.8% in euros and 2.5% in dollars. Our bubble score of 51 leaves the market in the moderate band. An approval is a promise of supply two to three years out, and 148,800 of them arriving into a market whose prices have gone nowhere for five years is a supply signal rather than a demand one.

Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Baugenehmigungen für Wohnungen im Juli 2026, Pressemitteilung Nr. 330, 18 September 2026 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2026/09/PD26_330_3111.html

Market data: Germany