METROX Launches Public Demand Index for Vienna and Graz

Vienna, April 2026. The introduction of Mietpreisbremse 2026 is changing the language in which the Austrian housing market speaks. Where rent used to be the loudest market signal, it is now a legal corridor. Rental rates are bounded by formula, not by demand. To see where the market is actually moving, you have to look past price — and read demand.

That is what METROX Demand Index now makes public: an indicator covering Vienna and Graz today, with Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck following over the coming months.

The METROX Demand Index is a 0–100 scale for each district, reflecting the public visibility of the district — its weight in the digital attention of the market. The indicator updates several times per week and is available without registration on the public METROX dashboard.

Unlike the quarterly indices from Statistik Austria and OeNB, the METROX Demand Index operates at high frequency — not a replacement for official statistics but a complement to them: a view of demand dynamics while transaction data is still being processed.

In 2026, Austria's Mietpreisbremse — a rent-increase cap — came into force. For the market, this means rent price is no longer a free signal of demand. It is determined by a formula, not by a tenant's actual willingness to live in that particular district.

At the same time, the ECB deposit rate has held at 2.00 % since June 2025, housing supply in Vienna continues to tighten, and Eurovision 2026 in May will add seasonal pressure on the short-term market.

Under these conditions, price says less than before. And demand says more.

"When rent is fixed by law, price dynamics become less informative. Demand dynamics remain the only way to see where the market is moving. We made these dynamics public — because the housing debate needs shared numbers, not an exchange of assumptions." — METROX

Without spoiling the live numbers — they change in real time — here are the patterns currently visible:

• In Vienna, high public visibility concentrates not in the most expensive districts. Where the price per square metre exceeds €10,000, visibility is typically moderate — the market moves more selectively.
• Graz behaves fundamentally differently: a more compact market, stronger seasonality, a pronounced role of the student cycle.
• Seasonal events — from Eurovision to academic semesters — leave a distinct imprint on the demand curve.

All of these observations can be verified in real time.

The METROX Demand Index is a proprietary AI-derived score (0–100) combining publicly accessible market signals — open listings, search interest, web-activity and marketing-analytics signals, and other complementary inputs. It is a demand-side indicator — the public visibility of districts in the digital space.

Vienna and Graz are the first two cities. Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck are scheduled to follow in the coming months. Kyiv operates as a parallel reference market — it helps validate the indicator's robustness under conditions where demand dynamics behave differently from DACH.

METROX is founded in Vienna. The team is Ukrainian-Austrian, with experience building analytical products across markets in Central and Eastern Europe. METROX is built in Vienna for DACH — with an understanding of how adjacent markets work, which is typically absent from local PropTech solutions.

• Public dashboard Vienna: metrox.io/en/vienna/dashboard
• Public dashboard Graz: metrox.io/en/graz/dashboard
• Mietpreisbremse context: Austria's 2026 rent cap in Vienna