EuroLife: Day 109

Apartments and Trains

Before coming here, Dolores and I heard a lot about the great housing market in cities of former East Germany, a great market, that is, for buyers and renters. However, the housing market in Jena proved to be tight and expensive -- not like New York City, London, or Munich of course, but not like South Bend either.

I recently read that only 1% of the dwellings in Lobeda, the largest suburb of Jena, are unoccupied. The Mayor of Lobeda cited this as a positive sign of the suburbs popularity. To me it sounded like a problem, like a housing shortage to be more specific. I've been told that an unemployment figure under 4 percent (or some similar number) is actually bad for the economy. In a healthy, dynamic economy jobs are being created and destroyed as successful companies grow and unsuccessful ones go the way of the dinosaurs. In order for this process to work, you need a certain number of people between jobs. By the same logic, one might argue that in healthy housing market about 3 to 4 percent of the properties should be unoccupied, or rather between occupants.

Our experience certainly confirms that such a problem exists. One apartment we looked at had six interested renters on the day it was listed, a full week before the previous tenets vacated it. Our current apartment never even made it onto the market.

The tight market seems to stem from the growth of the university and other research institutions.

In Leipzig, however, we found the housing market we'd heard so much about. In the historic center of Leipzig we saw the following apartments for rent. They are fifty percent larger than our apartment and about the same price. And look at that glorious built in kitchen! Look at those lovely windows! You can tell how big they are by noticing how close to the floor they come.

Here's a picture of the apartment building from the outside. Apparently its just been renovated, thought it clearly predates the war.

Dolores and I talked about moving to Leipzig. Its only an hour commute by train, and I would only have to go into Jena once or twice a week. Of course we won't. Perhaps we should try Weimar. Its only fifteen minutes by train, and I've hear that the housing market is also better there.



About the trains: they have gone up in price. When I was here ten years ago, for 27 Deutschmarks you could get a ticket that allowed you and your four best friends to travel anywhere in Germany for an entire weekend. The only catch is that you had to take the slow trains. In those days, with the exchange rate at something like 1.67 Deutschmarks to the Dollar, the ticket cost only $16.

They still offer the same ticket. Dolores and I used it to travel to Leipzig and back. Now, however, the ticket costs 35 Euros, and its only good for Saturday or Sunday. So if I wanted to travel on both days, as I could with the old ticket, I would have to pay 70 Euros or $103. Thats a 630% increase in price, at least in dollars.