Investment Properties in Krefeld: Figures, Districts, and an Honest Calculation

Moe Afonso · 2026-10-13

Krefeld is located on the Lower Rhine, only a few kilometers from Düsseldorf. However, used condominiums are offered here on average for about half the price: €2,325/m² instead of €4,470/m² in the state capital, according to NRW.BANK for 2024. Precisely this gap brings many investors to the city.

Before you think about an individual apartment, it's worth taking a look at the city. Krefeld is an industrial location, has high unemployment, and is one of the few cities in this price range with rent control. This changes the calculation.

We have compiled the official figures and calculate two apartments at the end, one used and one new.

01Krefeld in Figures

All values we use for classification, with source and status.

02Population and Demand

Krefeld has 230,738 residents. Ten years ago, according to IT.NRW, there were 222,500. This comparison is not entirely clean because the 2014 figure is still based on the 2011 Census. The direction is nevertheless clear: since 2015, the city has grown, primarily through influx. In 2024, 1,930 more people moved to Krefeld than moved away. At the same time, a good 1,000 more people died than were born.

For the future, the state expects the opposite. According to the IT.NRW population projection, the number of residents will fall from 230,400 in 2023 to around 219,000 in 2050. That's a minus of 4.9%. For 2040, the value is at 97.3% of today's level. Whether this happens depends primarily on the influx, and that was recently stronger than assumed.

For landlords, how people live is more important than the number of residents. In the 2022 Census, 46.3% of Krefeld households lived alone, more than the state average. 61.7% of apartments were rented. Krefeld is thus a tenant city, with a large need for small and medium-sized apartments.

Little is being built. In 2024, 197 apartments were completed; the average of the last ten years was 273 per year. The stock has grown by 2.8% to a good 123,000 apartments in ten years.

03Economy and Labor Market

Krefeld is an industrial city. 27.7% of employees work in the manufacturing sector; the state average is 24.7%. In the Chempark Krefeld-Uerdingen, companies like Covestro and Lanxess produce. Siemens Mobility has been building rail vehicles in Krefeld since 1898, today with more than 2,000 employees, including trains for the ICE network.

On Dec 31, 2024, 96,597 social security-covered employees worked in the city. 51,679 commuted from outside, while 43,946 Krefelders worked elsewhere. Bottom line, more people come to work in Krefeld than commute out.

The flip side is the high unemployment. In September 2026, the rate in the city was 10.8%, as high as a year earlier. In the neighboring district of Viersen, it was 5.9%. 14% of residents received minimum security benefits in 2024. For landlords, this means: the tenant base is mixed, and in simple locations, the rent often depends on the Jobcenter.

Additionally, there is the dependency on a few large industrial operations. Decisions in corporate headquarters about the Chempark or the Siemens plant directly affect the demand for apartments in the city.

With the Hochschule Niederrhein, Krefeld has a large university of applied sciences, which the city shares with Mönchengladbach. In the 2025/26 winter semester, 2,760 students began their studies there.

04Rents, Purchase Prices, and Rental Yield

The city's Expert Committee evaluated 853 sold condominiums in 2025, almost all of which were used. It reports prices by construction year and residential location as a median. In a medium location, an apartment from the 1970s cost €1,981/m², from the 1960s €1,944/m², and from the 1990s €2,490/m². New apartments were at €4,780/m², and €6,203/m² in good locations.

Particularly valuable for investors is a second evaluation. For rented condominiums, the committee examined 98 sales from the years 2023 to 2025. On average, they had 63 m², cost €2,010/m², and brought €8.3/m² in rent. This is not an asking rent, but the rent from the evaluated cases.

Prices fluctuate. The index for used apartments rose to 125.7 points by 2022 (2020 = 100), fell to 114.3 in 2023, and was back at 124.2 in 2025.

The price-to-rent ratio (Kaufpreisfaktor) can be calculated from the purchase price and rent. It says how many annual net cold rents the purchase price costs. The reciprocal is the gross rental yield (Bruttomietrendite).

The range is large. If you calculate with the rent that rented apartments actually bring, you end up at around 5%. This is more than in many major cities. However, higher rents for new rentals are limited in Krefeld by rent control, more on that in a moment. You can check your own figure with the rental yield calculator.

05Districts at a Glance

The Expert Committee counts where real estate is sold in Krefeld. Most sales cases in 2025 occurred in these eight districts. The figures include all property types, not just apartments. The committee does not publish prices per district; it works with residential locations.

How good an individual address is decides the price more strongly than the district. The Expert Committee distinguishes between simple, medium, good, and best residential locations. For apartments from the 1970s, the median in 2025 was €1,573/m² in simple locations and €2,326/m² in good ones.

06Rules for Landlords in Krefeld

Krefeld is one of the 57 municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia to which the state's Tenant Protection Ordinance applies. This has three consequences.

• Rent control (Mietpreisbremse) until Dec 31, 2029: For a new rental, the rent may be at most 10% above the local comparable rent. There are exceptions for, among others, extensively modernized apartments, for a higher previous rent, and for new builds. More on rent control in the glossary.
• Rent increase cap (Kappungsgrenze) 15%: In ongoing tenancies, the rent may rise by at most 15% in three years, and only up to the local comparable rent. More on the increase cap.
• Eight-year notice period block: If a rental apartment is converted into a condominium and sold, the buyer cannot terminate the tenant for personal use for eight years.

When buying in North Rhine-Westphalia, you pay 6.5% property transfer tax, one of the highest rates in Germany. Notary and land registry cost around 2% of the purchase price with financing, slightly more for small purchase prices. For an apartment for €129,000, this is a total of around €11,000 without a broker. Your case is calculated by the closing costs calculator; the items at the notary are explained in our post on notary costs.

07Example Calculation: a Rented Apartment in Krefeld

Let's take Jana, 38, single, employed with a taxable income of €60,000. She buys a rented condominium with 65 m², built in 1974, in a medium location. The purchase price of €129,000 corresponds to the median of the Expert Committee for these construction years. The rent, at €8.30/m², is at the level that rented apartments bring on average according to the Expert Committee. The name is fictional, the figures are a calculation example and not a forecast.

Jana thus pays around €77 per month out of her own pocket in this example, after taxes. Of this, €161 flows into the repayment, i.e., into her own assets. Viewed without repayment, a surplus of around €84 per month remains after taxes.

Why is the tax saving so small? The low purchase sum means little interest and little depreciation; the loss from renting is only just under €2,000. How rental income is taxed is explained in our post on taxing rental income.

Interest moves the calculation more than the rent. And a higher rent is only achievable within the limits of the rent index and increase cap for a rented apartment in Krefeld.

For comparison: a new build apartment in Krefeld

What changes if Jana buys a newly built apartment instead of the used one? We take 45 m² at the median the Expert Committee determined for new apartments in medium locations in 2025: €4,780/m². This results in €215,100. Jana pays property transfer tax (€13,982) and notary and land registry costs (€3,819) from her own capital, a total of €17,801. The bank finances the purchase price under the same conditions. As rent, we set the asking rent for new builds reported by NRW.BANK for 2024: €13.50/m². We have not evaluated a separate new build value from the rent index.

Compared to the used apartment, the depreciation in the first year is a good four times as high (€9,268 instead of €2,227), and usually less occurs for maintenance in a new building in the first few years. In return, the square meter costs almost two and a half times as much, and the gross rental yield sinks to around 3.4% instead of 5.0%. Before taxes, Jana pays around €397 extra per month here, after taxes around €66. Because degressive depreciation is calculated every year from the smaller residual value, the tax savings decrease in subsequent years. And the rent assumption is an asking rent that first needs to be achieved.

One point additionally speaks for the comparison in Krefeld: apartments first used and rented after Oct 1, 2014, do not permanently fall under rent control according to § 556f BGB. However, the 15% increase cap for later rent increases also applies here.

08Chances and Risks in Krefeld

Belegable points speak for Krefeld. Used apartments cost around €2,000/m², and rented apartments bring an average of €8.3/m² according to the Expert Committee. This results in a gross rental yield of around 5%. The city has grown in recent years through influx, almost every second household is a single-person household, and with Chempark and Siemens Mobility, there are large employers who bring more people into the city than commute out.

On the other hand, there are equally clear points:

• Labor market: 10.8% unemployment and 14% minimum security rate. In simple locations, the rent often depends on social benefits.
• Forecast: IT.NRW expects nearly 5% fewer residents by 2050.
• Rent control: For new rentals in the stock, the rent is limited to 10% above the comparable rent; in ongoing contracts to 15% in three years.
• Sector risk: Many jobs depend on chemicals and rail vehicle manufacturing; job cuts would hit demand.
• Long vacancy: Almost half of the vacant apartments have been empty for over a year. Apartments in poor condition find tenants with difficulty.
• Interest and maintenance: Many apartments date from the 1950s to 70s; renovations can trigger special levies.