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Junges Paar lehnt an eine Couch und freut sich über ihre frisch gestrichene Wand.
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Living at Fair Prices

Vonovia’s core business is the provision of housing that meets everyone’s needs. Our main challenge is to supply housing at fair and transparent prices while simultaneously achieving a climate-neutral housing stock. Discover how we are working towards our goal of providing homes for everyone by ensuring strict compliance with all regulatory requirements and implementing transparent, socially responsible measures.

Arnd Fittkau, in einem grauen Anzug und weißem Hemd, steht in einem modern gestalteten, lichtdurchfluteten Büro. Er hat kurzes, graues Haar und einen gepflegten Bart.
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Fairness in living means that everyone has access to safe and affordable homes, regardless of their income.

Arnd Fittkau
Chief Rental Officer

Our Projects

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Social Management

Click here to learn more about our social management.

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Saving Energy

Here you can find some useful energy-saving tips.

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Dresden Mediation Body

Click here to learn more about the Dresden mediation body (German only).

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Partnership with the City of Dresden

Click here to learn more about our partnership with the City of Dresden (German only).

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Partnership with the City of Frankfurt

Click here to learn more about our partnership with the City of Frankfurt (German only).

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Social housing in Leipzig

Click here to learn more about how we are helping to provide more social housing in Leipzig (German only).

Our Objectives and Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators and Target achievement: The average rent per square meter, the number of price-controlled apartments and – in Germany – the average allocation of refurbishment costs serve as key performance indicators. These key figures help us to measure and manage the progress of our targets.

Target for 2024: We aim to ensure that the average cost of rent remains affordable. Therefore, we design our energy-efficient refurbishment measures in such a way that both our climate target and the net cost for our tenants are optimally reconciled.

Medium to long-term target (2030-2045): In the medium term, Vonovia aims to increase the proportion of affordable housing in metropolitan areas and achieve a virtually climate-neutral housing stock by 2045 through new construction and refurbishment.

Challenges, Opportunities and Risks

Opportunities

By creating new, affordable housing and refurbishing existing units, Vonovia can address the housing shortage in urban areas while helping to ensure social stability. Innovative residential concepts and partnerships with city authorities offer further opportunities to create added value.

Risks

Rising construction and land costs as well as regulatory changes – particularly regarding rents and the allocation of investment spending – could increase the cost of housing and limit the company’s scope for action.

Opportunities

By creating new, affordable housing and refurbishing existing units, Vonovia can address the housing shortage in urban areas while helping to ensure social stability. Innovative residential concepts and partnerships with city authorities offer further opportunities to create added value.

Risks

Rising construction and land costs as well as regulatory changes – particularly regarding rents and the allocation of investment spending – could increase the cost of housing and limit the company’s scope for action.

Management Approach

As a responsible company, Vonovia is committed to providing affordable homes that reflect demand and meet the basic need for housing. We aim to offer long-term homes to as many people as possible. The challenge here lies in being able to offer a broad supply of housing at fair and transparent prices, even in a more challenging environment, while at the same time pursuing our climate objectives, which include a virtually climate-neutral housing stock by 2045.

Social responsibility and the transparency of our rents are decisive factors in this context. By expanding our core business – letting and new construction – we are making a substantial contribution to easing the current situation on the housing market. 

Strict compliance with regulatory requirements, such as rent indices and price-fixing agreements, in a highly regulated market, ensures reliability and stability in the landlord-tenant relationship. Additional measures – such as special regulations for elderly people, hardship management and the use of social managers – enable us to support low-income and vulnerable customer groups so that they can also remain in their apartments for as long as possible or continue to have access to affordable homes.

The use of public subsidies helps us to make existing and new housing affordable for our tenants and, at the same time, to implement climate protection measures. This contributes to a balanced tenant structure in our neighborhoods. 

Our commitment to social programs and the provision of social housing are further pillars of our approach. Cooperating closely with local authorities and involving stakeholders is essential for developing sustainable housing market solutions that meet people’s needs.

Our Measures

Eine Frau hält ein Schlüsselbund in der Hand und zeigt es in die Kamera. Sie lächelt und der Hintergrund ist unscharf, sodass der Fokus auf den Schlüsseln liegt.
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Social Rent Pricing

As homes become increasingly scarce and general conditions deteriorate, we continue to focus on providing homes at fair and transparent prices, suited to every budget. 

Our rental prices are based on local rent prices, and, if available, on certified rent indices.  Across the Group, the average rent price came to € 7.74/sqm (in Germany € 7.63/sqm) in the 2023 fiscal year, which corresponds to an organic increase in rent of 3.8%. This is significantly below the rate of inflation, which averaged almost 6% in Germany in the past year. Index-linked rents, i.e. rents linked to inflation, make up just around 1% of our lease agreements. The average rent including ancillary expenses in our portfolio remains below 30% of the average disposable household income in Germany.   

We support regulatory intervention in the housing markets because we believe that it helps to ensure social balance and creates a stable business environment as a result. When letting, we always observe the applicable country-specific legislation. 

In Sweden, rents are generally set as part of a binding, consensual process involving negotiations between tenants’ associations and landlords. This means that prices are fixed. Increases tend to occur annually and after refurbishment to a higher standard. 

In Germany, the costs of energy-related refurbishments can be passed on in the net rent – within a specific framework. The government has limited companies’ ability to pass on costs to € 3/sqm (€ 2 in the case of rents under € 7/sqm). The resulting increase in the rent is balanced out for the tenants through a reduction in heating costs. In the 2023 fiscal year, an average of € 1.32/sqm in refurbishment costs was passed on. 

Arnd Fittkau, Vorstand der Vonovia SE (CRO), und Oberbürgermeister Dirk Hilbert unterzeichnen am 6. April 2022 im Dresdner Rathaus die Vereinbarung zur langfristigen Zusammenarbeit „Wohnraumentwicklung Dresden 2030+“ von Vonovia und der Landeshauptstadt Dresden.
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Partnerships with Cities and Municipalities

Our business model ensures that we are always integrated into the urban society where we offer homes. Cities and municipalities are therefore our most important partners when it comes to the concrete design of our local residential offerings.  

In numerous cities and municipalities, we also offer subsidized and independently financed homes for people on low incomes – in Germany around 38,000 of our homes are currently price-controlled – and are responding to specific challenges with services tailored to local needs. The supplementary voluntary agreements that we conclude with municipal authorities include, for example, provisions governing fair rental conditions, the construction of new apartments or the strengthening of municipal housing construction companies and joint neighborhood development.

We also offer price-controlled homes, in particular in Austria and Sweden. Almost 20,000 (>90%) apartments in Austria and all of our approximately 40,000 apartments in Sweden are price-controlled. In total, around 18% of our entire portfolio is therefore subject to rent caps.

The fundamental concept on which all agreements are based is Vonovia’s desire to work in partnership with politicians and society to tackle municipal challenges and that the company takes specific local and social challenges present within cities into account within its planning.

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Comprehensive hardship and social management

At Vonovia, we rely on comprehensive social management to guarantee living at fair prices and provide our tenants with a secure network. Our target is always to support people’s ability to pay so that they can stay in their homes and their homes remain affordable. As such, we offer individual support measures ranging from rent deferments and payment in installments to assistance with housing allowance applications and relocation assistance. A team of social managers who have been trained to assist with such matters are on hand to help. 

As part of our hardship regulations, we apply uniform standards based on those of welfare associations in the event of refurbishment work. These standards were developed in 2021 in collaboration with the tenants’ association and other residential real estate companies, and help to ensure greater reliability and transparency in cases of hardship. In recent years, we have been able to achieve a positive outcome in the vast majority of hardship claims and provide direct assistance to the affected tenants. 

Also still in place are our special vested rights for people aged over 70 and our active support for people who have fallen into payment difficulties as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 

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Help with High Energy Costs

A particular source of financial strain for many households has emerged in recent years as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine – in the form of a sharp rise in energy costs (especially for heating). Even though we are generally not the energy supplier ourselves, but rather only pass on the costs charged by the energy providers concerned, we consider it our responsibility to support our tenants. 

With this in mind, we have developed a comprehensive package of measures to counteract – within our possibilities – the increase in costs caused by the energy crisis and inflation. These include reducing the nighttime temperature in our properties by one degree Celsius to save energy, energy-saving tips, help with claiming government benefits and individual solutions when tenants find themselves unable to cover energy costs. We provide our tenants with information about how to save energy in various languages, including on our website.

Energy prices have also risen dramatically in Sweden since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Due to the Swedish model of rents that already include ancillary costs, however, tenants only have to bear the price effect associated with electricity themselves, while landlords’ ancillary costs are on the rise due to the higher heat supply costs. However, this simultaneously provides incentives for energy-efficient building refurbishment. We have not yet identified any critical changes due to energy prices affecting rents or tenants.

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Discrimination-free Letting

A key concern for Vonovia is ensuring that all people can access housing without facing discrimination in accordance with the German General Act on Equal Treatment (AGG) and fundamental human rights. 

In a pluralistic, democratic society, fair and transparent access to homes is essential. Our residential offerings and services are therefore low-barrier and generally accessible; we word our housing advertisements and rental contracts using neutral language to prevent discrimination.   

When processing housing applications, we take considerable care to ensure that our allocation procedures are transparent and fair. Allocating apartments in a socially mindful way helps to achieve stable social harmony and contributes to people’s well-being in our neighborhoods.   

Furthermore, we foster an open anti-discrimination culture that is actively supported and promoted by the company’s top-level management. Our multilingual whistleblowing channels, which are also available to all tenants, can be used to report suspected cases of discrimination openly or anonymously. The purpose of this is to ensure that our values are practiced in all aspects of providing a home – from the application to the tenancy itself to moving out.   

We aim to ensure that no one finds themselves at a disadvantage due to their social background or other personal characteristics. Housing is a human right, and we are committed to safeguarding this right for everyone.

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Partnerships for Homes

We’re not only interested in protecting the especially vulnerable when it comes to making homes available to particular target groups. To support the mobility transition and contribute to the stability of an important component of the country’s infrastructure, Vonovia also cooperates with Deutsche Bahn.

The railway company’s employees can rent homes from us at favorable conditions. The aim is to give the company’s train conductors, drivers and technicians the opportunity to find affordable and appealing homes near their place of work. Through this cooperation, we have already entered into more than 630 lease agreements, many of them in large cities and more than 100 in Berlin.

In the future, we aim to expand our network of partners and explore collaborations with other professional groups.

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ORGANIZATIONAL FOCUS

Responsibilities

Rent structures and agreements with municipalities are managed in a decentralized manner via the regions. The individual measures are planned and coordinated in the Portfolio Management department. This department is also responsible for managing cases of hardship. It is supported by community developers in the individual regions in order to provide even better support for the tenants concerned. The Chief Rental Officer (CRO) is the Management Board member responsible for the property management business as well as for customer service and portfolio management.

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