Is Neufreimann Munich's next property hotspot?

See what went wrong for property buyers in Munich

Why is Neufreimann getting so much attention right now?

Neufreimann is finally starting to look like a real Munich neighborhood rather than a construction project on a map.

For years, the former Bayernkaserne site was mostly interesting because of what Munich planned to build there. That has changed. The city is developing roughly 5,500 homes for as many as 15,000 residents across Neufreimann, together with schools, childcare, sports facilities, shops, healthcare, cultural space and large public green areas.

People are living there now. The first 250 apartments were occupied in 2025, and Münchner Wohnen has just completed its first major residential block in the district: 190 apartments with room for more than 470 people. Another 225 apartments from the same municipal developer are expected to follow by the end of this year, with 374 more scheduled across two projects in 2027.

The public infrastructure is arriving at the same time. Gymnasium Neufreimann is already operating. The northern school campus, including a primary school, special-needs school and music school, is due to open this autumn. Munich also recently opened Neufreimann's first major green space, covering about 34,000 square metres and containing almost 250 newly planted trees.

Those recent changes are why the property question has become more interesting. Neufreimann has moved beyond the phase where investors were being asked to believe a masterplan. We can now see parts of the neighborhood working.

What Neufreimann had a few years ago	What Neufreimann has today	What comes next	Why buyers should care
A huge redevelopment plan	Residents living in completed buildings	Thousands more homes	Demand is becoming observable
Schools on paper	Gymnasium already open	Northern school campus opening next	Family appeal is becoming real
Planned parks	First 34,000 m² green area open	More parks and squares	Livability is easier to judge
Proposed transport	Tram construction has started	New tram service planned	Accessibility has meaningful upside

Can Neufreimann really be a property hotspot if almost nobody can buy there?

Neufreimann can become one of Munich's most desirable new residential districts even though it is a strangely difficult place for an ordinary investor to buy property.

That tension sits at the heart of the whole story. People normally imagine a property hotspot as somewhere they can buy an apartment before the neighborhood becomes fashionable, then benefit as rents, amenities and resale prices improve.

Neufreimann works differently.

Munich says the former Bayernkaserne development contains exclusively rental housing. A large part is being built by Münchner Wohnen, while other plots have gone to cooperatives and developers working under controlled-rent models.

The eastern Heidepark section is privately developed by Sedlmayr, but that project has also been kept as rental housing rather than split into individually sold apartments.

So when we ask whether Neufreimann is Munich's next hotspot, we have to separate two questions that would normally be the same. Neufreimann can become a very successful neighborhood. That does not automatically give private buyers an easy way to invest directly in that success.

Can you actually buy an apartment in Neufreimann today?

Buying inside the new Neufreimann district itself is extremely difficult because the apartments being built there are generally not entering the condominium market.

This is easy to miss when searching property portals.

ImmoScout24 currently displays apartments for sale under the Neufreimann location label, which makes the market look more conventional than it really is. But portal boundaries cover a wider area than the former Bayernkaserne development. Several properties labeled Neufreimann sit along Leopoldstraße and belong to the existing surrounding housing stock rather than the new district itself.

The city's own description is much clearer: the new Neufreimann quarter is being developed with rental apartments.

The current list of housing providers reinforces that picture. Münchner Wohnen is responsible for roughly half the district's apartments. Cooperatives including Kooperative Grossstadt, Progeno and Stadtimpuls have projects there. Sedlmayr controls four eastern development plots, while other sites use Munich's Konzeptioneller Mietwohnungsbau model.

What you may find online	Where it actually belongs	Can an individual normally buy it?	What it means
Apartment labelled “Neufreimann”	Wider portal-defined neighborhood	Sometimes	Check the exact address
Münchner Wohnen project	New Neufreimann	No conventional condominium sales	Municipal rental stock
Cooperative housing	New Neufreimann	Generally not normal investment stock	Long-term resident model
Heidepark	Eastern Neufreimann	Developed as rental housing	Private but institutionally held
Existing Freimann/Schwabing property	Around Neufreimann	Yes	More relevant for private buyers

Is Neufreimann still cheap compared with the rest of Munich?

Neufreimann is cheaper than prime Schwabing, but today's prices are already too high to call it an undiscovered bargain.

ImmoScout24's current price model puts apartments carrying the Neufreimann label at about €8,481 per square metre.

That is remarkably close to Munich as a whole. JLL's latest residential-market data puts the city's average condominium asking price at about €8,860 per square metre, while existing apartments average roughly €8,390.

The interesting comparison comes from nearby districts. Freimann remains considerably cheaper, around the low €7,000s per square metre in current portal data. Milbertshofen sits much closer to Neufreimann, around the low €8,000s. Schwabing remains close to €10,000 per square metre.

Neufreimann therefore occupies an awkward middle ground for buyers. It still offers a discount to established Schwabing, but much of the obvious “cheap northern Munich” argument has already disappeared.

Anyone buying around €8,500 per square metre today needs more than simple neighborhood improvement. They need Neufreimann to become desirable enough to close at least part of the remaining gap with better-known inner northern districts.

Area	Approximate apartment asking price	Difference versus Neufreimann	What we take from it
Freimann	Low €7,000s/m²	Neufreimann roughly 15–20% higher	Neufreimann already carries a premium
Milbertshofen	Low €8,000s/m²	Small gap	Similar northern-Munich price tier
Neufreimann label	~€8,481/m²	—	No longer obviously cheap
Munich overall	~€8,860/m²	Around 4% higher	Neufreimann is close to the city average
Schwabing	Around €10,000/m²	Roughly 15–18% higher	Some convergence potential remains

Are people actually willing to pay high rents in Neufreimann?

Yes. Neufreimann's first private rental projects are filling up at rents that already look much more like Munich than an unfinished outer district.

The cleanest evidence comes from Heidepark.

Sedlmayr completed the first 253 apartments there in 2025. By the end of that year, every apartment had been rented, according to the company's latest reporting. The average rent was about €22.50 per square metre.

That is useful because it gives us something better than a portal estimate. It shows that hundreds of actual new apartments were absorbed at roughly €22–23 per square metre even while Neufreimann was still surrounded by heavy construction.

The broader ImmoScout24 series tells a similar story. Its current average asking rent for apartments labelled Neufreimann is €22.45 per square metre, up about 3.4% over a year.

That remains below Munich's latest new-build average of €26.48 reported by JLL, but the discount is modest for a neighborhood that is still missing major pieces of its transport and commercial infrastructure.

More importantly, the 253-unit Heidepark lease-up shows that tenant demand is not theoretical anymore. People have already accepted Neufreimann-level rents in meaningful numbers.

Does Munich's housing shortage make Neufreimann a relatively safe bet?

Munich's housing shortage gives Neufreimann a very strong demand floor, although it does not guarantee that nearby properties will beat the rest of the city.

The latest JLL data still ranks Munich as Germany's most expensive large rental market. Average asking rents reached €25.41 per square metre, around 41% above the average across Germany's eight biggest cities, and rents rose another 5.4% over the previous year.

Housing construction continues to struggle to match that demand. JLL recorded only 28 completed homes per 10,000 residents in Munich, while permits stood at 40 per 10,000. The permit figure offers some hope that construction could recover, but the gap also shows how slowly finished homes are reaching the market.

Population pressure has not disappeared either. Munich ended 2025 with 1.612 million primary residents, about 8,650 more than a year earlier, according to the city's statistics office.

A district adding several thousand modern apartments into that environment starts with an advantage. Neufreimann does not have to invent demand from scratch or convince people to move to a shrinking city.

The harder hurdle is relative performance. An apartment near Neufreimann can stay fully occupied and still turn out to be an ordinary Munich investment if prices elsewhere rise just as quickly.

Could Neufreimann end up building too many apartments at once?

Neufreimann is adding a huge amount of housing locally, but the danger of a sudden rental glut looks fairly low.

The total development is enormous by Munich standards. Roughly 5,500 homes is more than an entire year's housing production at Munich's recent completion pace.

They are arriving gradually, though.

The first residents moved in during 2025. Münchner Wohnen has only recently completed its first 190-unit building and expects another 225 apartments later this year. Further projects follow in 2027 and beyond, while several cooperative developments currently target occupation around 2028. Construction across the wider district continues into the next decade.

That staggered schedule gives Munich time to absorb the housing.

There is also less risk of the familiar new-build problem where hundreds of private investors receive nearly identical apartments at once and immediately compete for tenants. Neufreimann's ownership structure means large blocks are being operated by municipal, cooperative or long-term rental owners.

The local rental market will certainly become more competitive as thousands of new apartments open. We just do not see evidence yet of the kind of uncontrolled supply shock that would undermine the whole district.

Is Neufreimann's new tram finally becoming real?

Yes. Neufreimann's tram has moved from a promise into physical construction, which makes the transport story much more credible today than it was a year ago.

The Tram Münchner Norden is one of the most important pieces of the Neufreimann thesis. Line 23 is planned to extend from Schwabing Nord through Neufreimann, while the wider network will connect the district with the U6 at Kieferngarten and the U2 at Am Hart.

The latest MVG construction update shows tangible progress. The Kieferngarten park-and-ride demolition has been completed, utility work is under way, and construction of the new bridge over the DB Nordring has reached the concrete stage. The first structural concrete for the bridge ramp was poured this summer.

That bridge will carry trams, pedestrians and cyclists across the railway corridor, creating a much better connection between Neufreimann and Parkstadt Schwabing.

MVG currently expects the full northern tram project to open around the end of 2029. That is later than the previous target for the first section, so investors should keep some schedule risk in their assumptions.

The long-term service pattern is strong if MVG delivers it. Neufreimann is expected to have direct tram access toward Schwabing and Am Hart, with the busiest Neufreimann–Am Hart section served by both lines 23 and 24. MVG expects around 8,000 tram passengers per day in the Neufreimann area alone.

Transport point	Situation today	Planned position	Property relevance
Tram construction	Physical work under way	Full network targeted around end-2029	Execution risk has fallen
Schwabing connection	Indirect today	Direct tram link	Better access toward inner Munich
Kieferngarten	U6 nearby but separated	Tram interchange	Easier north-south travel
Am Hart	Separate U2 catchment	Direct connection via lines 23/24	Better access toward BMW/FIZ
DB Nordring	Physical barrier	New tram/cycle/pedestrian bridge	Stronger link to Parkstadt Schwabing

Is Neufreimann in the right part of Munich for jobs?

Yes. Neufreimann sits close to one of Munich's biggest employment concentrations, and the new transport links should make that advantage more useful.

BMW's Research and Innovation Centre at FIZ is the obvious anchor. BMW currently says more than 25,000 people work there, making it the group's largest single location.

That is only part of the northern employment base. BMW's main Munich plant, Parkstadt Schwabing, the Euro-Industriepark and the wider U6 corridor toward Garching put Neufreimann within reach of several large clusters rather than one isolated workplace.

The geography becomes particularly interesting when combined with the tram. Workers around Am Hart and the BMW area will gain a much simpler east-west connection toward Neufreimann, while the extension south improves access toward Schwabing.

For rental demand, that gives Neufreimann a broader audience than families looking for new housing. Young professionals and households working across northern Munich have a practical reason to live there as well.

We would be much more cautious about a large new neighborhood dependent on one future office development or one speculative employment hub. Northern Munich already has the jobs. Neufreimann is mainly improving the connection to them.

Are Neufreimann's schools arriving fast enough for families?

Yes. Neufreimann is getting serious education infrastructure unusually early in its development, which should make the neighborhood much easier for families to choose.

Gymnasium Neufreimann is already open at its permanent site.

The northern school campus is the next major step. Munich currently expects its primary school, special-needs school and music school to open this autumn. Other childcare and family facilities are being distributed throughout individual housing projects.

Münchner Wohnen's recently completed 190-apartment building, for example, includes a children's facility and family center. Another 193-home project due in 2027 includes additional social and care uses.

This is where Neufreimann compares well with some new-build districts. Families do not have to wait until the entire neighborhood is complete before basic infrastructure appears.

Schools also make the housing market less dependent on short-term renter demand. A district that works for households with children has a better chance of developing stable residential demand across larger two-, three- and four-room apartments.

Will Neufreimann actually feel like a proper neighborhood?

Neufreimann has a good chance of feeling genuinely urban, although anyone moving there today still has to tolerate years of construction around them.

The district is being built at high density, but the design tries to combine that density with normal city life. Apartments sit alongside childcare, services, shops, offices and social uses rather than being separated into a pure residential estate.

Around 25% of the development area is intended for parks, squares and other open spaces. The first 34,000-square-metre green area is now open, which gives residents something tangible rather than another promised park on a planning document.

The street layout also matters. Neufreimann uses dense urban blocks and active ground-floor spaces, with a central neighborhood square planned along the future tram route. Several taller buildings will create a clear center rather than leaving the district as a collection of unrelated housing projects.

Commercial life is still the weaker part. Shops, restaurants and everyday services need time to follow residents, and Neufreimann's own neighborhood management is still using temporary commercial concepts while the permanent offer develops.

So the neighborhood already has housing, schools and its first serious public space, while street life remains several steps behind. That is a much more precise description of Neufreimann today than simply calling it either “finished” or “still a building site.”

Will subsidized housing hold Neufreimann back?

No. Neufreimann's large affordable-housing component is more likely to stabilize the neighborhood than damage its long-term appeal.

The recently completed Münchner Wohnen building gives us a good idea of the mix. Of its 190 apartments, 100 use income-oriented subsidies, 43 belong to the München-Modell rental program and 47 fall under Munich's controlled KMB system.

That means many Neufreimann residents will pay substantially below normal market rents.

Some investors instinctively interpret a high share of regulated housing as negative for property values. That is too simplistic here. Munich is not struggling to attract high-income renters, and Neufreimann does not need to become a luxury enclave to succeed.

A mixed tenant base also helps create demand for schools, neighborhood services and local shops throughout the week rather than producing a district dominated by small investor-owned apartments.

There is one genuine trade-off. Private landlords around Neufreimann compete indirectly with a large supply of cheaper regulated housing. We would therefore be careful about assuming that market rents in nearby older apartments can rise simply because the neighborhood improves.

The better investment argument is neighborhood quality and stronger demand, rather than scarcity created by keeping lower-income households out.

Could Neufreimann stay a construction zone for too long?

Yes. The biggest day-to-day weakness in Neufreimann is that the neighborhood will remain unfinished for years.

Münchner Wohnen itself currently describes the quarter as heavily shaped by construction sites, even as residents move into its newest buildings.

That will not disappear quickly. Hundreds more apartments are due over the next few years, several cooperative developments are still being built, the tram has years of construction ahead of it, and some civic facilities arrive even later. Munich currently expects the youth center around 2028 and the fire station around 2029/30.

Anyone living there during this phase gets the inconvenience before receiving all the benefits.

Construction noise, temporary roads, unfinished ground floors and incomplete pedestrian routes are especially relevant when comparing Neufreimann with established neighborhoods at similar rents.

For an investor with a long horizon, however, the unfinished state also creates the possibility of improvement. The mistake would be paying a fully mature-neighborhood price today while assuming every remaining project will arrive smoothly and on schedule.

Could the Euro-Industriepark become Neufreimann's second wave of improvement?

Yes. The planned transformation of parts of the Europark could eventually improve Neufreimann's surroundings almost as much as construction inside Neufreimann itself.

The current edge between the new district and the Euro-Industriepark is not particularly attractive. Large retail buildings, parking areas and heavily commercial streets create a very different atmosphere from central Schwabing.

Munich is now actively trying to change part of that.

The city's current planning concept for the Maria-Probst-Straße area proposes roughly 70% residential use, with space for around 700 to 1,000 homes. Plans also include shops, green areas, a market square, outdoor restaurants and better links toward the wider green network.

The project is still much earlier than Neufreimann. Public consultation only took place this year, and the planning process still has several steps ahead.

But the direction is important. Munich explicitly links the rethink of the Europark to the huge changes already happening in Neufreimann and around the DB Nordring.

If that redevelopment moves forward, Neufreimann's current commercial edge could gradually become a more continuous urban neighborhood. We would treat that as additional upside rather than something buyers should already pay for.

Are property prices around Neufreimann likely to rise faster than Munich overall?

They could, but the case depends much more on local improvement than on another Munich-wide property boom.

Munich's ownership market has started recovering, although the rebound is still fairly restrained.

JLL's latest figures show average condominium asking prices up 2.2% over a year to €8,860 per square metre. Existing apartments rose 1.4% to €8,390. Interestingly, new-build asking prices fell 4.2% to €10,810.

That mixture tells us buyers have returned, but they are still price-sensitive.

Over five years, Munich condominium asking prices remain down about 3.7% in JLL's series. We are therefore nowhere near the sort of broad, cheap-credit boom that previously lifted almost every part of the city together.

For Neufreimann, that may actually make the next few years more revealing. Local improvement can be separated more clearly from general market inflation.

If an existing apartment near Neufreimann gains a direct tram connection, new parks, more shops, better schools and a stronger urban environment while Munich prices grow only modestly, outperformance becomes plausible.

The price paid at entry remains crucial. At €8,000 to €9,000 per square metre, buyers are already accepting a large part of Munich's general scarcity premium.

Are nearby apartments actually a better Neufreimann investment than apartments inside the project?

Yes. For a normal private buyer, existing property around Neufreimann is currently the more practical way to invest in the neighborhood's transformation.

As we saw above, almost all the new housing inside the core development is held as rental stock rather than sold apartment by apartment.

That shifts the investable area outward.

Freimann has older and generally cheaper apartments that could benefit from better local amenities. Kieferngarten should gain from the new tram interchange with the U6. Properties toward Am Hart benefit from stronger connections across northern Munich, while the northern edge of Schwabing receives better access toward a large new residential district.

The interesting feature of this setup is the mismatch between amenity growth and privately tradable housing supply.

Neufreimann brings thousands of residents, schools, parks, new streets, shops and transport infrastructure into the area. Existing owners nearby can benefit from those improvements without facing thousands of newly sold condominiums inside the development itself.

That does not make every apartment nearby attractive. An overpriced 1970s unit with poor energy performance does not become a great investment simply because a tram is coming.

The stronger strategy is to look for existing housing close enough to benefit from Neufreimann's infrastructure but cheap enough that the improvement has not already been fully priced in.

Area to investigate	Why it could benefit	What to watch	Our view
Freimann	Lower current prices and improving amenities nearby	Older building quality	Most obvious value angle
Kieferngarten	U6 plus future tram connection	Less urban streetscape	Strong transport angle
Am Hart	BMW/FIZ employment and future tram links	Distance from Neufreimann core	Good renter-demand angle
Northern Schwabing	Better connection to Neufreimann and Parkstadt	Already expensive	Lower upside unless bought well

What could stop Neufreimann from becoming a Munich property hotspot?

The main risk is that buyers start paying for the finished version of Neufreimann several years before the finished version actually exists.

The tram schedule has already slipped from an earlier target, which shows why infrastructure should never be treated as guaranteed until construction is advanced. Work is now genuinely under way, but the current opening target still sits several years away.

Retail is another uncertainty. Apartments and schools can be delivered by large public and institutional developers. Creating good cafés, useful shops, restaurants and busy streets is harder to engineer and tends to happen more slowly.

Construction itself will remain intrusive for years.

Then there is price. Neufreimann-labelled apartments are already close to Munich's overall average asking price. The lower the discount at purchase, the more future improvement we need before the investment starts looking exceptional.

Finally, not every nearby apartment benefits equally. Distance to the future tram stops, building condition, energy efficiency, street environment and walking access to the new district will probably create large differences within the same postcode.

The danger is less that Neufreimann fails completely. We think that outcome looks increasingly unlikely. The more realistic risk is paying a hotspot premium for the wrong property before the neighborhood has earned it.

Is Neufreimann Munich's next property hotspot?

Partly yes. Neufreimann is becoming one of Munich's most convincing new residential neighborhoods, but the best property opportunity currently sits around the development rather than in its center.

The strongest part of the case is that several assumptions have recently turned into observable facts. Hundreds of apartments are occupied. Heidepark's first 253 homes reached full occupancy at rents around €22.50 per square metre. Münchner Wohnen has started completing its own large housing pipeline. Schools are operating, the first major park is open, and physical construction of the northern tram has started.

That gives us considerably more confidence than we could have had when Neufreimann was mainly a masterplan.

Demand also looks hard to question. Munich remains Germany's most expensive large rental market, its population is still growing, housing delivery remains constrained and northern Munich already contains huge employment centers such as BMW's 25,000-plus-person FIZ.

Price is where we become more selective. Neufreimann-labelled apartments already trade close to Munich's citywide average, while the neighborhood itself remains unfinished. Buyers cannot simply assume that every future park, tram stop or shop produces another large jump in value.

The investable twist is even more important. Private buyers have very little direct access to the new district's housing stock. Existing apartments in Freimann, around Kieferngarten, toward Am Hart and on the northern Schwabing edge are therefore more interesting ways to capture the change.

Our final judgment is that Neufreimann deserves the hotspot label for residential demand and neighborhood transformation. It does not yet deserve it as a blanket instruction to buy whatever property carries the Neufreimann name.

The strongest opportunity is much narrower: buy good existing housing on the edges of the district before all of Neufreimann's transport and urban infrastructure is finished, but only where the current price still leaves room for that improvement.

Fact-checked and reviewed by our local expert

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Nicholas Runtic

CEO and cofounder of LDP Group

Based in Munich, Nicholas Runtic is CEO and co-founder of LDP Group, a real estate investment firm serving international professionals in Germany. His background in finance, private banking, and property investing gives him a strong understanding of Munich’s competitive market and the importance of selecting high-quality assets for long-term wealth creation.

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