Anyone planning to buy a home in Austria will be aware that prices and demand have been rising over the past couple of years.
But Austrian broker association Remax is now saying that demand is falling with signs that “the market is starting to turn”.
In the first half of this year, 74,258 newly purchased properties were registered in the Austrian land register (Grundbuch). This is three percent less than during the same period in 2021, according to data from Remax.
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However, this figure is still 15.7 percent more than in the first half of 2019, which reflects the boom in the Austrian property market since 2020.
Also, despite the number of transactions going down this year, the value is actually up by 10.8 percent to €21.73 billion, which shows property prices are not yet coming down.
Bernhard Reikersdorfer, Managing Director of Remax Austria, said: “The growth was primarily supported by Vienna and Styria, but also by Upper and Lower Austria.
“This means that real estate trading turnover has increased by a third in the first half of the year since 2019 and 2020, and more than doubled when compared to 2015 and before that.”
'Inflation is driving up costs'
The Remax report says property market trends in Austria are being influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, inflation and the energy crisis.
This has led to a change in prospects for some people, which is being seen as a drop in demand in the property market and a reduction of new construction projects on privately owned land.
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Anton Nenning, Remax Austria expert, said: “Inflation is driving up the new construction costs – first through the material and now through the staff – and is now gnawing away at the equity capital saved for new acquisitions.
"This means that many financing transactions that could be processed easily and cheaply a year ago are suddenly a case for selected experts who can still find a way even in tricky situations. For many, however, this simply means a project stop.”
As a result, the market for single family homes in Austria is heating up as they are sometimes cheaper than building a new property on private land.
What is happening in Vienna?
Austria’s capital city remains the second best performing property region in Austria (behind Lower Austria). The value of all property sales in Vienna increased by one billion in the first six months of 2022, bringing the total to €6.68 billion.
Donaustadt is the best performing property market in Vienna with 1,903 properties sold, followed by Favoriten with 1,096. Donaustadt even overtook Graz and Kitzbühel to record the highest value in property sales.
The five largest real estate transactions in Austria also took place in Vienna during the first six months of the year.
A plot of land (258,269 m²) in the 22nd district became the country’s most expensive property when it was sold for €86 million.
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What are the property trends outside of Vienna?
Vienna might be Austria’s capital city, but it doesn’t have the hottest property market in Austria right now. Instead, that title belongs to Salzburg and Styria.
Property sales in Styria are up by 9.2 percent and the overall transaction value has increased by 18.5 percent. In Salzburg, both sales and transaction values increased by 3.6 percent.
In the Alps though, the opposite is taking place with sales down by 10.7 percent in Vorarlberg and by 6.4 percent in Tyrol.
However, Tyrol is still recording some high prices (despite the overall decrease in sales) with the state’s most expensive property selling for €19.6 million in Kitzbühel earlier this year.
Lower Austria is currently the country’s best performing state for the number of sales, although the province recorded a decrease for the first time since 2013.
The Remax report named Mödling as the most popular district for property in Lower Austria.
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