Southern Germany city sees overseas demand surge

More than 7 out of 10 property enquiries in the city of Lindau in southern Germany are from overseas property buyers says local agency.

Lindau, which is built on an island on the southern coast of Lake Constance (called Bodensee in Germany) is well placed to combine “spectacular views of the Alps, an enviable climate by German standards and a booming local economy,” Sabine Maria Wagner, managing director of the local Engel & Völkers Property Shop told OPP this week.

“Demand is pushing up house prices,” she says, and “70% of enquiries are from foreigners - an unusual figure in a country where people do not tend to move often, particularly from one state to another.”

Many overseas property investors like the city’s position and some come to work at a large and successful group of nearby engineering and aerospace companies based in and around Lindau and the larger city of Friedrichshafen, about 24 kilometres (15 miles) west, along the lakeshore.
The city hs been promoting its waterfront as the “Bavarian Riviera” and, according to Sabine Wagner, homes with a view of Lake Constance and the Alps can get sold for as much as ?5,500 to ?7,000 per sqm.

Lakeshore building plots are high coveted and can fetch between ?1,500 to ?2,000 per sqm for the land alone. “People sometimes wait for years for the right plot to come up,” Wagner told OPP.
Her agency is currently marketing a three-bedroom, two-bathroom semidetached house with Alpine views, built in 1991, for ?895,000. It also has listed, for ?889,380, a four-bedroom, 165-square-meter, or 1,800-square-foot, penthouse apartment that was recently built on the island next to a marina. It offers views of the lake and the mountains.

Average home prices in the Lindau area have risen 5% to 10% in the past 12 months, says Wagner, with “wealthy vacation-home seekers and German retirees” pushing the market up fast.