Apartment buildings in NRW 2026: What buyers pay between Düsseldorf and the Ruhr area

1. Market situation: liquidity is returning

After the interest-rate shock of 2022 and 2023, the market for apartment buildings in North Rhine-Westphalia is back. In 2025 the valuation committees recorded 10,642 sales of three- and multi-family houses and mixed-use buildings, 13% more than the year before. Turnover rose by 21% to €8.0bn. Around a third of all sales (3,199) took place in the Ruhr area.

Prices, by contrast, are recovering only slowly. In the independent cities they fell by 11% in 2023 and rose by 1% in both 2024 and 2025. Arithmetically, the price level is therefore still around 9% below 2022. In Düsseldorf the gap is larger: the price index for income properties fell from 414 points (2022) to 336 points (2024) and recovered to 348 points in 2025. Regaining the previous peak would require a further rise of around 19%.

The Ruhr cities show a calmer picture. Dortmund’s apartment-building index rose from 94.3 to 96.2 points (2020 = 100); Bochum was virtually unchanged at 102.1 points and reports 15% more sales with 30% more turnover. Herne recorded a decline of around 2%.

The shift towards smaller properties is striking. In Dortmund the number of sales rose by 19%, but turnover fell from €408.9m to €361.5m, so the average price per property dropped from around €0.92m to €0.68m. In Duisburg turnover fell by around a quarter, while in Oberhausen it rose by 80%. This fits a market driven by private and semi-institutional buyers who mainly acquire small and mid-sized buildings.

2. Multiples and yields by city

The purchase price multiple states how many times the annual net cold rent buyers pay for a property. It is the key metric for valuing an apartment building. The valuation committees derive it from notarised purchase contracts, not from asking prices. Its inverse is the gross initial yield.

The lower cap rate does not contradict the gross yield. It additionally accounts for operating costs and the limited remaining useful life of the building, and it is the rate valuers use to calculate the income value.

Looking beyond the city limits shows how quickly the multiple falls with location. For purely residential buildings, the property association RDM estimates 23 times annual rent in Düsseldorf as of January 2026, 19 times in Neuss, 17 times in Ratingen, Mönchengladbach and Viersen, 16.5 times in Krefeld and 14 times in the Mettmann district. Buildings with a commercial share trade considerably lower, at 19 times in Düsseldorf.

The price-to-rent ratio is telling. A square metre costs around 2.4 times as much in Düsseldorf (€2,670) as in Duisburg (€1,131), while rent is only 1.6 times higher (€10.2 versus €6.3). In Düsseldorf, buyers pay above all for location quality and capital stability; in the Ruhr area, above all for current income.

3. Worked example: the same building in three cities

A simple example shows what the multiples mean in practice: an apartment building with 600 m² of living space, let at the city’s average rent and valued at the city’s average multiple.

The same building is therefore worth around 2.5 times as much in Düsseldorf as in Duisburg. The fact that this simple model almost exactly reproduces the prices per square metre actually paid shows how strongly this segment is priced on rent and multiple. For owners this means: if you know your rent and the market multiple, you know the order of magnitude of your sale price.

4. Rental upside: where value is created

Rent is the biggest lever for the value of an apartment building. A comparison shows how much potential the existing stock holds: the buildings sold in 2025 were let, on average, well below today’s level for new lettings.

The gap cannot be realised in full. Asking rents include new-build and refurbished flats, and tenancy law limits increases in existing leases. But it shows where value is created with every new letting. The gap is largest in Oberhausen, Bochum, Herne and Duisburg, precisely where multiples are lowest. For income-oriented buyers, this is the core of their calculation.

How quickly the gap can be closed also depends on the city. Under the NRW tenant protection ordinance, Düsseldorf and Dortmund are subject to the rent cap on new lettings (until the end of 2029) and a reduced limit of 15% for rent increases within three years (until February 2030). These stricter rules do not apply in Essen, Duisburg, Bochum, Herne and Oberhausen, where the general limit of 20% applies. This difference is often overlooked in calculations: in the unregulated Ruhr cities, rental upside can be realised faster.

5. Value drivers at property level

The averages conceal how much the price depends on the individual building. The market reports document five factors that matter most to sellers:

• Size: in Bochum, buildings with three to four units achieved on average 20.2 times annual rent, buildings with five to seven units 16.1 times and larger buildings 14.8 times. Smaller properties attract a much wider pool of buyers.
• Location within the city: in Dortmund the range runs from 14.6 times in Innenstadt-Nord to 19.6 times in the Süd district. The Düsseldorf valuation committee applies a cap rate up to 21% lower for good locations and up to 35% lower for very good locations than for average locations. A lower rate means a higher value.
• Commercial share: in Düsseldorf, buildings with 35% to 45% commercial use trade at 18.8 to 20.6 times instead of 22 to 23 times; in Oberhausen at 13.5 instead of 15.1 times. In Bochum the multiple falls to 12.8 times with more than 50% commercial use.
• Building type: three-family houses in Düsseldorf achieved 26.5 to 28.8 times annual rent, considerably more than larger apartment buildings, because they also appeal to owner-occupiers. With 8 and 11 sales, however, the samples are small.
• Remaining useful life: the buildings sold had an average economic remaining life of 22 years in Dortmund up to 37 years in Oberhausen. Refurbishment extends it and directly affects the income value.

Two buildings in the same city can therefore differ more in their multiple than the averages of two cities. Pricing has to start with the property, not with the city average.

6. Yield and financing: when debt helps

The gross yield does not yet say what the owner actually earns. Deducting the operating costs that the valuation committees report for each city gives a net initial yield. This is the figure buyers compare with their financing costs.

Financing has recently become more expensive again. According to the Bundesbank, the effective interest rate on new housing loans with more than ten years’ fixed interest was 4.04% in August 2026, up from 3.73% a year earlier. Broker Interhyp quoted 4.23% for a ten-year fixed rate at the end of September 2026. Ten-year German government bonds yielded around 3.45% in early October, and the European Central Bank raised its key rates by 0.25 percentage points in September 2026. The deposit rate has stood at 2.50% since 16 September.

The comparison with net initial yields is revealing. In Düsseldorf, the yield of around 3.6% is below the cost of financing, so every borrowed euro lowers the return on equity. Buyers in Düsseldorf are therefore mostly equity-rich and rely on capital stability and rising rents. In Essen, Duisburg and Oberhausen, by contrast, the net initial yield of 4.5% to 4.8% is above the loan rate, and debt can still raise the return on equity, albeit by a narrow margin. This explains why financed and income-oriented buyers are increasingly looking at the Ruhr area. The calculation ignores repayment and acquisition costs, but it shows the order of magnitude.

7. Supply: too little is being built

On the supply side, scarcity is increasing. According to IT.NRW, only 37,185 homes were completed in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2025, 9.4% fewer than the year before and the lowest number since 2011. According to the housing market forecast commissioned by the state, around 46,000 homes a year are needed on average until 2040. Building permits rose by 10.7% to 44,905 homes in 2025, but at 20,191 in the first half of 2026 they were slightly below the previous year again. For apartment buildings with three or more units they fell by 11% to 10,938, the lowest level in 13 years.

For owners of existing stock this is a structural tailwind. As long as considerably fewer homes are completed than needed, pressure on rents remains high, and let existing properties benefit.

8. Outlook: what we expect over the next twelve months

From these factors we derive three scenarios for the value of let apartment buildings over the next twelve months. Value equals rent times multiple: if rent rises by 3% at an unchanged multiple, value also rises by 3%.

The asymmetry is notable: because of its low yield, Düsseldorf reacts more strongly to interest-rate changes and carries the greater risk in the downside case. With its higher yields, the Ruhr area is better cushioned against rising rates. For risk-aware, income-oriented investors this currently favours the Ruhr area; for buyers focused on long-term capital stability, Düsseldorf remains the choice.