Pursuits

Here's How the Boring German Housing Market Turned Piping Hot

  • Rents climbing in Berlin, Hamburg, as more people move there
  • Germany has one of the world's lowest home-ownership rates

GERMANY - DECEMBER 21: Germany, Freudenberg, Half-timbered houses in Freudenberg, Germany.

Photographer: Ulrich Baumgarten/U. Baumgarten via Getty Images
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Germany’s housing market is hot.

Rents are rising in big cities including Berlin and Hamburg as young people seeking work move there from rural areas and elsewhere in Europe. Construction, however, has been slow to catch up, which has led to housing shortages and made leasing apartments a bonanza for landlords.