In Austria, housing completions declined by 1.7% last year. Only in Vienna, Salzburg and Burgenland were more flats completed in 2022 than the year before. For the next few years, both building permits and completions will decline overall, as a new study by Interconnection Consulting shows.

Overall, building permits in residential construction will decline by around 12% in 2023, which will also have an impact on housing completions. In 2023, a decline of 5.5% is expected in the entire federal territory. 15,669 residential units were completed in Vienna in 2022, more than in any other federal province. This is followed by Lower Austria with 10,083 and Upper Austria with 8,661 residential units. The largest increase in housing unit completions (single/two-family houses and multi-storey housing) was recorded by Salzburg with a plus of 14.3%. Vienna (+3.5%) and Lower Austria (+2.9%) also recorded increases in completions. In all other federal provinces there were declines in residential construction. In Vorarlberg the decline was 15.9%, in Styria 9.5%. Whereas Styria in particular, and especially the greater Graz area, experienced high construction activity in 2021 and the figures for 2022 are still above the long-term average, as Yuliia Hrebenkova, author of the study, explains.

Boom District in the Ski Region

Graz and the Viennese districts of Donaustadt, Favoriten and Floridsdorf are the districts with the greatest construction activity in the residential sector. In Donaustadt 4,779 residential units were completed in 2022, in Graz it was about 8% less than in 2021, but still almost 4,500 residential units. The districts with the highest growth in residential construction are Zell am See, Liesing and Oberwart (see chart). Districts with strong declines in residential construction were Leoben, Murau in Styria and Hermagor in Carinthia.

One-Family Houses Still in Fashion in Lower Austria

Overall, the multi-storey residential construction sector in Austria completes more than two thirds of all residential units. Naturally, the federal capital dominates in this segment with about 15,000 units, ahead of Styria with about 5,500 units. This is followed by Lower Austria and Upper Austria. In the segment of detached and semi-detached houses, about 5,000 housing units were completed in Lower Austria last year. Upper Austria came in second with about 300 units less. Lower Austria and Upper Austria dominate this segment with about 50% of all completions nationwide.

13/04/2023

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