Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Well, in 2015 we also built social housing.. Plot was former railway land in the center, executed to KfW 55 standard. Mechanical ventilation, heat pumps, etc. Wouldn't the Energy Saving Ordinance have been enough? Added to that is the rat's tail of administration and regulations, many of which of course are legitimate.

The question is what you specifically save. In residential construction, you generally have ETICS with concrete + polystyrene, where the difference between KfW 55 and 70 is often only the thickness of the insulation layer. The work is the same. There is funding for that. So it may well have been effectively cheaper. There is also the aspect that in the past, social housing was built massively with cheap and poor-quality apartments, which then only attracted the corresponding clientele. The result was social hot spots. Nowadays, there are hardly any pure social housing projects anymore; instead, from the start, an effort is made to achieve a certain mix within the building. In such cases, a certain standard is acceptable, and I don't consider decentralized ventilation or heat pumps excessive luxury.

Social housing (1400 m2 living space) by a church foundation, completed from 2019 to 2020 in our community in northern Bavaria (40 minutes from Nuremberg or Würzburg), plot donated by the municipality.

Pure construction costs: 3500 /m2. No developer profit.

In 2019/2020, it was not possible to build social housing that expensively (unless you were a construction company and earned money in the construction company and not in the project company). Then it is not proper social housing with restrictions, but simply "normal" housing. Even today you can easily build social housing in Bavaria for under €3,000/m2.

In addition, there is the aspect that in the past mass construction of cheap and poor-quality social housing took place, which, however, was only inhabited by the corresponding clientele. The result was social hotspots. Today, there are actually no pure social housing buildings anymore; rather, an effort is made from the outset to achieve a certain mix within the building.

Additionally, "the corresponding clientele" often receives social benefits, where unnecessarily high ancillary costs (because only the minimum insulation etc. was done) ultimately are borne by the general public.

Apartment and single-family house construction are, however, two different things. In the end, price development is simply also extremely dependent on the location and the general economic situation of the region. Here with us, for example, despite a lot of automotive, there are no nice properties on the market. Falling construction costs are also not observed, so that basically only a shortage of supply can be expected overall. This then means relatively stable or even rising prices, making homeownership affordable for fewer and fewer households.

Well, social housing was also built here in 2015.. Plot was former railway area in the center, executed in KfW 55. Mechanical ventilation, heat pumps, etc. Wouldn’t the energy saving ordinance have sufficed? Added to that is the bureaucratic tail of administration and regulations, many of which are of course correct.

Previously undeveloped plot in the middle of the village, perfectly flat. No idea about ventilation. But KfW-55 should have already been the minimum standard in 2019. District heating was installed, so heat pumps or gas would have been even more expensive. There is an elevator (but I think it is mandatory with 20 apartments) and some apartments are care-friendly. Otherwise quite unspectacular: no KNX, no Venetian blinds, no retaining walls, no loft spaces, no sliding lift-and-slide doors, etc. By the way, in 2019, 2000 euros per square meter was still assumed here in the forum for simple single-family houses....

In addition, the "corresponding clientele" often receives social benefits, where unnecessarily high ancillary costs (because only the minimum insulation etc. was done) are ultimately borne by the public.

Just casually asking, what do you think you can save on heating costs between the Energy Saving Ordinance and KfW55? I believe that greater damage is caused by misplanning from heating engineers under the motto we've always done it this way.