Residential construction in Austria is weakening considerably, which can also be clearly seen in the National Bank’s new residential real estate dashboard, for example. “Many projects are being postponed or not started at all,” said property developer spokesman for the Austrian Association of the Real Estate Industry (ÖVI), Thomas Raith, at an association press conference on Wednesday in Vienna. The property development business has “completely fallen asleep” because there is a problem where the proverbial cat bites its own tail: banks insist on a certain level of pre-utilization when they finance the construction of a new residential project. A certain proportion of the apartments have to be sold off plan so that the project can even get started. However: “No one is currently buying an apartment that is not finished,” said Raith. A chicken and egg problem.
