Apartment prices below prior-year level for the first time in more than two years

These insights are based on the latest update of the GREIX sales price index, a joint project of the local expert committees for property values (Gutachterausschüsse für Grundstückswerte) and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The index is based on notarized transaction data from the sales price collections of the local expert committees and currently tracks price developments in 27 cities and regions. In addition, with Thuringia, the GREIX fully covers a German federal state other than a city-state for the first time. All data is freely available at greix.de.

Compared to the previous quarter, nominal prices for apartments rose by 0.5 percent. Single-family homes were traded 0.5 percent cheaper, multi-family homes 0.2 percent cheaper. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, apartments were down 0.2 percent and thus below the prior-year level for the first time since the second quarter of 2024. Single-family homes were still 0.9 percent above the prior-year level, while multi-family homes were 2.4 percent below. Given the low number of transactions, the figures for multi-family homes are less conclusive.

Apartment price growth comes to a halt

The fact that apartment prices rose compared to the previous quarter yet remain below the prior-year level is explained by their development since autumn 2025. In the fourth quarter of 2025, prices fell by 0.8 percent and have since moved largely sideways. The current increase is not enough to offset this decline. At the beginning of 2025, annual price growth still stood at 3.3 percent, compared with only 0.1 percent in the second quarter of 2026.

Adjusted for inflation, that is, measured in current purchasing power, prices fell in all three segments. Compared to the previous quarter, apartments declined by 0.3 percent in real terms, single-family homes by 1.3 percent and multi-family homes by 1.0 percent. Year-over-year, the real declines amounted to 3.0 percent for apartments, 2.0 percent for single-family homes and 5.2 percent for multi-family homes.

“Price growth for apartments has practically come to a standstill. The first year-over-year decline in more than two years marks a turning point, even if the decline is still small. The listing data also points to a weaker market. Apartments and single-family homes remain listed for longer, and asking prices are being adjusted downward more frequently,” says Jonas Zdrzalek, GREIX Project Lead at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Fewer sales of apartments and single-family homes

In the second quarter of 2026, for which the number of transactions has now been fully recorded, 1.7 percent fewer apartments were sold than a year earlier. For single-family homes, the decline was more pronounced at 8.2 percent. The analyses for the third quarter of 2026 indicate that this weaker development is continuing. As individual purchase contracts are recorded with a time lag, the rate of change cannot yet be determined conclusively.

Mixed trends in the major cities, Berlin down year-over-year for the third time in a row

Compared to the previous quarter, apartment prices rose by 2.8 percent in Cologne, by 2.4 percent in Frankfurt am Main and by 0.8 percent in Düsseldorf. In Berlin they fell by 0.9 percent, the steepest decline among the six major cities with current data. Stuttgart (–0.1 percent) and Leipzig (0.0 percent) remained virtually unchanged. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, prices in Berlin were 2.9 percent lower, the third annual decline in a row. In Cologne, by contrast, they rose by 4.6 percent. In Leipzig, the annual increase slowed from 3.9 percent in the previous quarter to 0.6 percent. Since 2014, apartment prices in Leipzig have risen by almost 150 percent, more than in any other city analyzed.

Other cities between slight gains and declines

Outside the eight largest cities, too, no uniform trend emerges. In Karlsruhe, apartment prices rose by 1.7 percent compared to the previous quarter, in Dortmund by 0.2 percent. At –0.1 percent, Lübeck remained close to the previous quarter’s level. In Münster, prices fell by 1.9 percent.

Expensive markets still have considerably more ground to make up

A special analysis covering the period up to the second quarter of 2026 reveals large differences between local housing markets. For this purpose, 24 cities and districts were divided into three groups according to their price level in 2019. In the most affordable group, prices most recently stood at a median of 3.3 percent above their previous peak. In the most expensive group, by contrast, they were still 10.2 percent below. The difference between Leipzig and Stuttgart is particularly striking. Leipzig was 3.6 percent above its previous peak, while Stuttgart was still 21.8 percent below.

“There can be no talk of a broad recovery. While some more affordable markets have already returned to their previous peaks, many expensive markets remain well below them. One possible explanation is their greater sensitivity to interest rates. Where properties were already expensive before the interest rate turnaround and offered comparatively low returns, the higher financing costs are likely to have weighed particularly heavily on prices,” says Zdrzalek.

Listing data points to declining market liquidity

In addition, the GREIX evaluates listing data from the VALUE Marktdatenbank. All liquidity indicators currently point in the same direction. In the third quarter of 2026, the average listing duration, measured as a moving average over four quarters, stood at around 94 days for apartments and 95 days for single-family homes. For apartments, this was the highest level since the second quarter of 2025, for single-family homes the highest since the first quarter of 2025. At the same time, the asking price was adjusted for 22.4 percent of apartment listings and 21.0 percent of single-family home listings. These shares have risen for five consecutive quarters. Earlier analyses show that increasing price reductions in listings tend to be associated with weaker price developments in the following quarter.

Thuringia is the first German federal state other than a city-state fully covered by the GREIX

With Thuringia, the GREIX sales price index fully covers a German federal state other than a city-state for the first time, with data reaching back to 2013. Also newly added are the district of Coesfeld with data from 2007 and the district of Gütersloh with data from 1995. The new areas are already included in the aggregate GREIX index. Their individual results will be published in the near future.