Dwellings including secondary residences
Dwellings are generally used as main residences, i.e. at least one person is registered with main place of residence at this address (in precisely this dwelling). If this is not the case, the dwelling is a secondary residence (at least one person has registered this dwelling with secondary residence) or a dwelling with no registered residents, i.e. on the reference day of the Population Census no-one was registered at this dwelling. This does not mean that this dwelling is vacant. But it is true that in many cases this kind of dwellings are restricted in terms of their de facto use, e.g. because of renovation work, of inheritance proceedings or because of the fact that new residents (tenants or purchasers) have not yet moved in. Holiday flats rented out privately also belong to this category as well as accommodations completely used as workplaces, i.e. although such entities have the structural characteristics of a dwelling they are currently used e.g. as doctor’s surgeries, lawyer’s or others small offices.
Dwellings completely used as workplaces were not included in the earlier building and dwelling censuses since they were not used for residential purposes on the reference days of the censuses. Considering future evaluation of the building and dwelling register these units should be recorded in the same way like dwellings because they might possibly be used as dwellings later again.
Comparing the stock of housing in 2001 to earlier censuses, the data therefore needs harmonisation – q.v. the title of the summing up table “Dwellings (excluding dwellings completely used as workplaces)”. This separation does not affect the subset of dwellings stated as main or secondary residences since these units by definition cannot be “used completely as workplaces”.
In the 1981 and 1991 Housing Censuses the differentiation between secondary residences and dwellings with no registered residents could not be harmonised between all communes. These surveys were not strictly connected to the system of registration of residences administered by the local authorities and precedence was always supposed to be given to what was happening in fact. This means that comparisons of time can only be made by subsuming all dwellings not being main residences. The increase in non-main-residences over the past 20 years can be viewed to a certain extent as an indicator of prosperity – there are more dwellings than needed to satisfy direct housing needs. This has enabled some people to move to higher-quality dwellings and allowed renovations to be made between leases. On the other hand dwellings at greater distances from centres of employment lose in value and are only used occasionally. Second residences in Vienna can be practical for reasons of employment. In Burgenland and Lower Austria secondary residences for recovery purposes are possibly more affordable than in Salzburg, Tyrol or Vorarlberg. Dwellings having been recorded in the 1991 Census without residents because of less frequent use appeared in 2001 as secondary residences because of the close link to the system of registration.
Secondary residences and dwellings with no residents are most commonly located in buildings with private ownership, (at least outside of Vienna) in residential buildings with only one dwelling. The high share of dwellings in residential buildings for communities comes about student residences and senior citizens’ homes in which registration as main residence is not always insisted upon.
Substandard dwellings are less used than well-equipped ones (the share of non-main residences is 28% of all substandard dwellings, but only 12% of all best equipped units).
Special notification: In the Building and Dwelling Census 2001 for dwellings without main residences it happened more often that as replacement the building questionnaire and dwelling questionnaire (available in German only) was completed by proxy by the local authorities or that they were filled out inadequately because of the absence of the owner of the dwelling. This means, for instance, that in these subgroups the important statement of the tenure status of the dwelling is less reliable than for main residences. The fact that the plausible, assured statements for the tenure status of dwellings such as building proprietor's own use, freehold dwelling (owner used) and indefinite rental dwelling crop up more frequently is not surprising. Statements such as “rented dwelling (limited lease)” or “other type of ownership/tenancy” for dwellings with no residents rather may express the caution of proxy respondents than the actual legal tenure state. “Rental tenure (limited lease)” for dwellings in which only persons with secondary residence are registered suggests annual holiday dwellings. Generally the breakdown by floor space and by type of tenure reveals the higher number of smaller rented dwellings and oppositional with it the higher number of larger owner-occupied dwellings.
The intensity of usage of dwellings is also reflected by type of heating and by heating materials used: Non-main residences, being only 14% of all dwellings, reach 23% of all dwellings heated with electricity and 18% of those heated with wood.
Please consult our German website for tables and charts containing further information.
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