By Maria Martinez
BERLIN, April 27 (Reuters) – German rents kept rising sharply in the first quarter of 2026 while residential property prices largely stagnated, according to the IW Housing Index, seen by Reuters on Monday.
Rents for new leases rose 3.5% from a year earlier and 0.6% from the previous quarter, showing little sign of relief for tenants.
The sharpest rent increases were recorded in the commuter belts around Germany’s largest metropolitan areas, where rents rose 4.2% year-on-year. Other large cities also saw strong gains of 3.8%, the study showed.
Among major cities, Düsseldorf led with a 5.9% annual rise in rents, followed by Cologne at 5.7% and Hamburg at 5.1%, while Berlin recorded a 0.8% decline.
PROPERTY PRICES STABILISE
Purchase prices for both apartments and one- or two-family homes were broadly flat on the quarter, each edging up just 0.1%.
Compared with a year earlier, apartment prices rose 2.5%, while prices for one- and two-family houses increased only 0.7%, the report showed.
Across Germany’s 10 biggest cities, the picture was mixed. Cologne posted the strongest annual increase in purchase prices at 5.1%, followed by Frankfurt at 3.9% and Essen at 3.6%. By contrast, prices fell by 2.1% in Stuttgart and 0.3% in Munich.
(Reporting by Maria Martinez; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
