Rental apartments are currently more in demand than ever in Austria. This is also proven by a recent analysis of the domestic real estate portal FindMyHome.at. Accordingly, 72% of the more than 8.2 million property listings recorded by the real estate platform in 2023 were for rental apartments. “Compared to 2022, this represents an average increase of 26%,” says Bernd Gabel-Hlawa, co-founder of FindMyHome.at.
The increase is even more pronounced in the federal capital of Vienna: Demand here is for rental apartments rose by as much as 33%. In total, almost 1,150,000 users have searched for a rental apartment more than six million times.
According to FindMyHome, there are two main reasons for the run on rental apartments: Firstly, this is the migration from ownership to renting, which is due to the KIM regulation coupled with the prompt rise in lending rates. On the other hand, Vienna’s good image is attracting a large number of people from both within Austria and abroad. “78% are still domestic searchers with the country code Austria and language setting German,” says Bernd Gabel-Hlawa.
Germany ahead of the USA
However, for the first time in the 23 years of the renowned real estate platform’s market presence, 22% of property searches on the open rental market are attributable to international searchers. According to the FindMyHome analysis, the approximately 250,000 international users can be assigned to the following nationalities:
1st place: Germany with 57,500 users
2nd place: USA (38,324)
3rd place: UK (10,236)
4th place: ex aequo Hungary and Sweden (around 8,000 each)
5th place: Switzerland (around 7,000)
6th place: Italy (4,300)
7th place: Holland (3,545)
Rental apartment in the premium segment: strong interest from Eastern Europe
The breakdown of nationalities in the exclusive rental segment is somewhat different. “Here too, searchers from Austria and Germany continue to dominate,” says Bernd Gabel-Hlawa. However, the places behind are occupied by other countries, with Ukraine having made a considerable leap forward – from 7th place in 2022 to 4th place in 2023. According to the study, Ukraine even made it onto the podium for some brokers. The distribution in figures:
1st place: Austria with 62%
2nd place: Germany ( 12%)
3rd place: Switzerland ( 9%)
4th place: Ukraine ( 8%)
5th place: Bulgaria (4%)
6th place: Romania ( 3%)
7th place: UAE (2%)
Luxury switches from condominium to rental apartment
There are also three other special features in this segment: “Exclusive rentals have found a new tenant much more quickly since 2022. Apartments with a net rent of less than EUR 1,000 are usually made inactive again after a few days of being listed online due to tenants being found,” says Bernd Gabel-Hlawa. The trend is similar for properties with net rents of over EUR 3,000. Whereas these were previously often on the market for 8 to 14 months, the average marketing period was reduced to 2 to 4 months in the previous year. “We are also seeing more and more luxury apartments in owner-occupied properties, such as penthouses in Vienna’s city center, being converted to rental properties. Prices of over EUR 10,000 per month are not uncommon here – and almost without exception, these also find an international tenant,” says Bernd Gabel-Hlawa.
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