That statistic is highly misleading. The median wealth in Germany is low due to a low rate of home ownership. But disposable income (purchasing power adjusted) is the highest in the entire EU (data missing for some countries, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Norway may be higher): https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&plugin=...
If home ownership is not the standard mechanism for long-term wealth accumulation and rental laws are such that they strongly favor the renter it makes no sense to use home ownership as your yardstick for measuring wealth. The ability to take on a huge chunk of debt with which you will speculate on real estate asset appreciation is not an indicator of income.
Due to renter-friendly laws, home ownership is not as culturally ingrained in Germany as elsewhere. Many people who could afford buying simply choose not to.
