FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German residential property prices continued to fall in the second quarter, dropping by an average of 2.6% year-on-year, but they showed some signs of stabilisation, federal statistics office data showed on Friday.
The annual declines have slowed over recent quarters, and prices rose 1.3% in the second quarter from the first three months of the year, the first quarter-on-quarter increase since 2022.
For years, the property sector in Germany and elsewhere in Europe boomed as interest rates were low and demand strong.
But a sharp rise in rates and costs put an end to the run, tipping developers into insolvency as bank financing dries up and deals freeze.
(Reporting by Rene Wagner and Tom Sims, Editing by Miranda Murray)
