The construction and real estate industry in general and residential buildings in particular are essential pillars of the national sustainability strategy in Germany and extremely important for resilient socio-economic development. By performing life-cycle examinations of different building types, the Institute for Concrete and Masonry Structures at Darmstadt University of Technology has analysed the sustainability characteristics of residential masonry buildings with regard to common German sustainability certification systems. This paper gives an overview of the key findings of the examinations. It is a condensed version of the authors’ article for the 9th International Masonry Conference 2014 in Portugal [1] and at the same time a preview of a forthcoming paper in this journal (Vol. 18, No. 5).