OREANDA-NEWS. August 6, 2012. The upward trend in new housing construction in Germany continues: In seasonably adjusted terms, 32% of borrowers supported in the framework of the KfW Home Ownership Programme were planning a new construction or the purchase of a newly constructed owner-occupied home in June 2012 - that is 1.6 percentage points more than the previous month and 1.4 percentage points more than in the same month the previous year. The indicator, which KfW regularly calculates exclusively for the magazine "Wirtschaftswoche", points to a continuing positive outlook over the entire year for new home construction.

"The overall economic framework conditions continue to boost housing construction," commented Dr Norbert Irsch, Chief Economist of KfW Bankengruppe, regarding the current indicator results. "Interest rates for construction loans continue to remain low, while the good job market situation is helping increase disposable income - and last but not least in the context of the Euro crisis there remains great interest in investing money relatively securely in domestic real estate."

Already since 2009 there has been a trend towards increasing investments in housing construction. In the first quarter of 2012 these investments grew by 0.4% compared to the previous quarter (price and seasonally adjusted), thereby decoupling from the development of overall construction investments, which declined by 1.3%. The positive outlook of the KfW Indicator Own Home Construction for investments in housing construction over the rest of the year is also supported by the official early indicators: The index of new orders in housing construction in April 2012, the current cut-off date for the statistics, was at 7.7% and thus significantly higher than the previous year.