The Austrian prefabricated house market successfully defied the decline in the completion of single and two-family houses in 2022 and grew by 7.9%. However, the further decline in construction dynamics will also result in a decline in the prefabricated house market, as a study by Interconnection Consulting pointed out.

In 2022 there was a decline of -5.4% in the completion of detached and semi-detached houses in Austria. Despite that fact, sales of prefabricated houses increased by almost 8%. In the coming years, the general decline in the completion of single and two-family houses will continue. In 2023, completions of single and two-family houses will plummet by 17%, which will ultimately also lead to a falling sales volume for prefabricated houses for 2023. In Austria, a decline in volume of 7.6% is expected for this year, which, despite sharp price increases, will even result in a drop in turnover in the industry of around 3%. The fact that the decline is not more pronounced is due to the increasing prefabricated houses proportion, which will even rise to 38.8% in 2023. In total, the market volume in Austria in 2022 was 1.3 billion euros.

 More price increases

The Ukraine war has created instability, resource shortages and is affecting the supply side of the economy. The enormous delays in the delivery of services drove the price increases even further. Therefore, on the prefabricated house market, prices increased by +7.3% in 2022, in 2023 prices are expected to increase by +5.1% and in 2024 by +3.9% compared to the previous year.

Turnkey trend

The preferred house type for prefabricated houses is the single-family house. In Austria, the share is currently 78.5%. This is followed by two-family houses with currently 4.9%. The rest is divided into terraced houses and “multi-storey residential buildings”. Frame construction dominates with a current share of 73%. With regard to construction stages, a trend towards “turnkey” can be observed. This stage of construction has shown a continuous increase in market share in recent years, which is currently around 41%. This trend goes at the expense of ready-to-build and ready-to-tile prefabricated houses.

28/03/2023

Copyright: Interconnection, Publication free of charge for coverage regarding the study and InterConnection Consulting.