Among this Bavarian real estate – many unresolved housing issues
Real estate most often ends up without owners in two cases. Sometimes after the death of the previous owner, heirs simply cannot be found. Experts explain this as a consequence of radical demographic changes in German society: the share of elderly people without children and relatives is growing. But it also happens that heirs exist, but they refuse the house or land plot that is due to them. This happens much more often than we think: inheritance sometimes does not bring money, but requires it – in the form of investments or not fully repaid loans.
In both cases, real estate left ownerless by law passes to the state, which has thus recently become the largest homeowner.
According to a survey commissioned by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) in the administrative structures of 16 federal states and district administrations, Bavaria inherited the most real estate. Moreover, with a huge lead over the other states: according to the state Ministry of Finance, Bavaria accounts for 7,251 houses, that is 72.5% of all housing received by the German state. More than half of these buildings and plots (3,857) are owned solely by the federal state, the rest is in shared ownership. Hesse ranks second in terms of inherited real estate (742). Thuringia is third (581).
As we can see, no other federal state owns a four-digit number of inherited buildings and plots – Bavaria is the absolute champion. Over the years, the number of properties inherited by the state has grown. In 2005, Bavaria came into possession of 351 houses, but in 2015 – already 535. The thing is, such an inheritance does not bring large dividends to the budget, unfortunately: management costs for maintaining the properties are quite high, and only a few can be sold. Moreover, some of the houses are in terrible condition and require urgent repairs.
The geographical factor plays a big role. The economic boom is limited to Munich and its surroundings, while the Bavarian hinterland is losing population, and real estate prices are steadily declining. For comparison: approximately similar (not new) houses near Munich and in the Kronach district in northeastern Bavaria cost 1.5 million euros and 85,000 euros respectively. Moreover, finding a buyer for the second house will be much more difficult than for the first.
This, apparently, largely explains the fact that across Germany, about two million apartments stand empty today, while large cities face a shortage of available housing. Incidentally, city-states have virtually no problems with inherited real estate: in Berlin or Hamburg, such cases are rare, since housing is always in demand and always valuable. Bremen, far from the largest, has not received a single building or plot 'by inheritance' at all. An interesting situation has developed in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: the government in Schwerin owns only one inherited apartment.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the survey commissioned by DPA suffers from incompleteness and cannot be considered sufficiently representative overall, since not all federal states treated it with equal responsibility. For example, Lower Saxony provided no information at all, and Baden-Württemberg reported an average annual figure of 34 properties without indicating current data. Some governments only stated the number of land plots without mentioning whether they are built-up or not. But even from what we have, it becomes clear: state-inherited real estate is, above all, a Bavarian problem.