Germany’s property market looks broken at home — but global capital is buying in

This issue of REFIRE contains more evidence of Germany's property market dysfunction than we have published in recent years: housing completions heading for 215,000, barely half the government’s nominal target; a housing deficit at a record 1.4 million units; and a reform agenda the industry describes, with admirable restraint, as well-intentioned but insufficient.

Reading it all in one sitting, you could be forgiven for concluding that Germany's property market is in serious trouble. And in many respects, it is.

But running as a quiet counter-current through this same issue is a different story entirely, one that we find at least as significant as the litany of structural problems, and considerably more instructive. While Germany's domestic debate remains largely consumed by what doesn't work, international capital is quietly reaching a different verdict. And it is voting with its chequebook.