Determinants of Building Refurbishment in the Residential Rental Market

Energetic building refurbishment is a key variable for achieving the targets in Germany’s energy strategy. But how many of the investments in green buildings are profitable? How many refurbishments will be made without subsidies? The article analyses which conditions promote or impede green investments, i. e. how investment costs are shifted from landlords to tenants. The results based on 1,300 buildings show that rents and initial returns are highly dependent on the type and scope of renovation, market situation, and building age. However, it was not found that rents and returns are systematically related with location and population density. Our data show that the differences across landlords are low, but that the motivation of the landlords matters: if refurbishment projects are made for financial reasons, rents raises are more likely and higher; if they are made for energy saving, rents are more likely to be kept constant and to rise to a lesser extent.

Download | PDF