[HN Gopher] Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court
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Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court
Author : tavrin
Score : 145 points
Date : 2021-04-15 08:12 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| unixhero wrote:
| Here goes nothing. Bye bye Berlin. This is going to be painful
| for many.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| It shouldn't be overly painful. There were already laws in
| place restricting the price of rent. It's just a few months ago
| nearly everyone got a rent decrease. Mines was about 150 euros.
| With this decision it may be possible that the landlords ask
| for back rent that they didn't charge because of this law. And
| our rents go back to what they were. I considered my rent
| pretty cheap in the first place so I am not overly concerned
| about the rent hike. I am going to be annoyed about paying back
| rent in a lump sum for something that really wasn't anything to
| do with me.
| Tenoke wrote:
| If you only got 150e then indeed your rent was pretty cheap
| (close to the cap). In my case, for example, the difference
| is 500e.
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| The Berlin senate knew the Mietendeckel was on the balance of
| probabilities unconstitutional, but they went ahead with it
| anyway. Not a single new apartment was built with this law. Total
| and utter waste.
| mousetree wrote:
| Per another comment in this thread, this isn't true. Many
| apartment buildings are indeed being built:
| https://taz.de/Mehr-Baugenehmigungen-in-Berlin/!5706294/
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| you should review the latest statistics, that article is from
| august 2020, the number of baugenehmigungs in 2020 went down
| in comparison to 2019. https://www.statistik-berlin-
| brandenburg.de/pms/2021/21-03-1...
|
| and AFAIK MietenWoG didn't fund or support the new housing
| developments.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Hah, how to quote statistics and ignore everything else
| (like a worldwide pandemic) to back up your arguments.
| varispeed wrote:
| Not sure how it is in Germany, but in my country (UK) the housing
| problem seems to be completely artificial. If you are an
| individual you cannot just buy land and buy a house - it is
| impossible to go through all the red tape and even if you do,
| local council for reasons known to them will unlikely to approve.
| So the market is really in hands of a couple of huge development
| companies who mostly build shoeboxes that they call homes and
| don't build enough so that there is space for everyone and if
| they do it's too expensive for anyone anyway. These flats are
| more like a storage of value for foreign rich people. I think
| this is because those millionaires can corrupt any politician and
| get their way, whereas average citizen cannot do anything.
| Tomte wrote:
| > The court ruling found that since the federal government had
| already made a law regulating rents, a state government could not
| impose its own law that infringed upon that
|
| That's somewhat inaccurate, because "infringing" doesn't come
| into play.
|
| The German Constitution clearly delineates things that the
| federal government may regulate, things that the state
| governments may regulate, and things that both may regulate.
|
| In the latter case, the state governments may only regulate when
| the federal government hasn't done so.
|
| Here the federal government did, by way of amending the civil
| code, so Berlin isn't allowed to.
|
| The court did not rule on the material issue whether such a rent
| cap would be constitutional, if enacted in a procedurally proper
| way.
| Angostura wrote:
| That sounds exactly like 'infringing' to me. In what way is it
| not?
| nicbou wrote:
| Without judging the outcome, here are a few things HN readers
| might not be aware of:
|
| - The supply of rental apartments dropped by 40-60% after the
| Mietendeckel came in effect. It became even harder to find an
| apartment in Berlin. Landlords were holding their breaths.
|
| - The supply of housing for sale also dwindled. If I'm not
| mistaken, sellers were waiting for the court judgement to
| rent/sell.
|
| - The Mietendeckel also concerned furnished apartments, although
| it was largely ignored by landlords on short term furnished flat
| platforms like Wunderflats. The platforms turned a blind eye.
|
| - I know many people who got significant reductions, sometimes
| exceeding 20%.
|
| - In most cases, the new rent contracts with reduced rents had a
| shadow rent clause in case the Mietendeckel got repealed. Many
| people will have to pay the difference back within 14 days.
|
| - The Mietpreisbremse, and earlier rent control measure, is still
| in effect. It does not include the rent freeze, but it does
| include significant rent reductions. Unfortunately, it's not
| automatic (no threat of a fine), and often needs to be enforced
| in court. The court judgement is retroactive to April 2020.
|
| This is all I know/remember.
| dathinab wrote:
| Also, and maybe most important:
|
| _In the majority(?) of cases it did not work._
|
| Landlords found absurd ways to work around it. Many not
| necessary fully legal but only in a way that if no one who is
| "hurt" by it sues the state can not act.
|
| There where enough people which where open to pay the de-facto
| increased "not so legal" Rent, and as such would definitely not
| sure.
|
| A common trick was to pair the rent contract with Renting some
| token furniture for completely unreasonable (and as such
| somewhat illegal/moon-) prices. (note: this wasn't the same as
| the rent prices for furnished apartments exception thingy
| mentioned by others)
|
| Again if both renter and rentee are happy with it there is
| nothing which the state could have done.
|
| Also more apartments where sold instead of rented out, in turn
| decreasing the amount of rente-able apartments while the demand
| did change (maybe except due to COVID, I would have to look it
| up). Furthermore it's not uncommon that such apartments do not
| enter the rent pool again even if the person in question leaves
| Berlin (and then illegally perma rents it over RBnB to
| tourists, or keeps it empty or resells it or ...)
|
| Lastly due to majorly increased renovation costs (as far as I
| know) and now rent caps it was basically much less likely for
| any new apartments to be added to the pool. And even
| (potentially necessary) renovations of existing ones was much
| less likely done (as far as I have heard from people involved
| in that business, through not the very big players, but it
| matches the experience other cities which did impose rent caps
| had).
|
| And just to be clear Rents in Berlin reaching a point where
| it's problematic for many people from Berlin to pay them IS a
| massive problem. Just that this law as far as I can tell would
| not have solved it and maybe even made it worse. Also yes Rents
| had been unusual low in the past (I'm personally profiting from
| this) but now they have gone beyond any reasonable price in
| many cases (at least in context what many people earn in
| Berlin).
| nicbou wrote:
| > A common trick was to pair the rent contract with Renting
| some token furniture for completely unreasonable
|
| That's a problem with the Mietpreisbremse, but not so much
| with the Mietendeckel, which also sets limits on furnished
| flats. You also can't just throw in an IKEA BILLY shelf and
| call it furnished (in the words of my lawyer).
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| - the amount of apartments for sale increased but so did the
| prices.
|
| - furnished aparthotels are something special and they got an
| exception from the state (because some providers are state
| owned)
| [deleted]
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| The only way to balance the market is to reduce demand and
| increase supply.
|
| Build more.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It's better that everything is explicit.
|
| * If you want cheaper rents: build more housing.
|
| * If you want more housing, zone more housing.
|
| * If you want to keep "local vibrant culture" alive. Give direct
| cash transfers from the government. Don't try to sneak subsidy
| trough private housing.
|
| * If local government needs more money, tax property.
|
| Urban economics has real trickle down effect: It does not matter
| if you build apartments for the rich or poor, everyone gets
| affordable housing if you just keep building enough apartments.
| osclarto wrote:
| why does society consistently insist on funneling it's wealth to
| an unproductive class of elites? i want answers
| kdtsh wrote:
| The people who drive that wealth redistribution are the
| unproductive class of elites and have an interest in and the
| means to doing so.
| amelius wrote:
| If more than 50% of people own their house, then renters are
| outvoted.
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| Here are some examples of ways berlin could have increased the
| amount of affordable housing:
|
| 1. Build more housing on land that is already owned by Berlin
| State
|
| 2. Increase the amount of housing support available to low income
| families
|
| 3. Prevent the migration of social housing units to the private
| market by extending existing contracts.
|
| 4. Close loopholes in the Mietpreisbremse that allowed landlords
| to dramatically raise the rent after renovations.
|
| 5. Block NIMBY movements from preventing the construction of
| housing projects
|
| 6. Fund the court system so cases can be resolved in less than a
| decade.
|
| 7. Increase the minimum number of social housing units in new
| developments to 50%
|
| ...
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Only #1, #5 and #6 would actually improve the situation and not
| be a zero-sum game, the rest is socialism, just rehashed.
| alexgmcm wrote:
| Socialism is the worker's ownership of the means of
| production not "when the Government does stuff"
|
| Taxing unoccupied properties could help to ensure existing
| properties were actually used and not just held empty by
| speculators.
|
| But yeah, the main solution is building stuff - I think we
| need to build residential skyscrapers in the West like they
| have in Eastern cities, otherwise the urban population
| densities we are arriving to are unaffordable for most
| citizens.
| varispeed wrote:
| > Taxing unoccupied properties could help to ensure
| existing properties were actually used and not just held
| empty by speculators.
|
| This won't work, as investors can hire people to live in
| the property and it will make it more expensive as a
| result, as someone will have to pay for that extra admin.
| varispeed wrote:
| 7. Why should the other 50% pay more? This is what I am uneasy
| about - if you work hard, live a modest life to save for a
| place to live, sacrificing hobbies, socialising, happier life
| in general and then you have other half who just don't care
| because they think they should receive everything from the
| state. This is extremely demotivating and make people question
| whether they were correct about saving and making sacrifice. I
| personally know people who became homeless on purpose as they
| found they could get a house much quicker this way rather than
| through working their bottoms off. Don't get me wrong - there
| are people who genuinely need help and I wholeheartedly support
| that, but I don't think the number is 50%.
| chakhs wrote:
| or change rules for social housing to something like
| singapore. anyone who doesn't already own a house is
| illegible to buy a social housing unit (paid as rent). but it
| requires huge investments. I also don't want to work my ass
| off just to end up paying the same % of my salary to the
| landlord.
| oled10 wrote:
| The rental situation is bleak. There's a two class system of
| people who got cheap housing 20 years ago and can never move
| (like in New York). If they move, they keep the apartment and
| sublet it.
|
| Then there is a massive indiscriminate sellout of property to
| very rich foreigners. In some top locations you hear more Russian
| than German in the streets.
|
| Otherwise, in the lower segments there is enormous pressure from
| refugees, who get government aid while low income Germans do not.
|
| The people who decide everything (Red/Green party) most have
| cheap apartments that they got 20 years ago. They don't suffer
| from their own policies.
| nicbou wrote:
| Keeping the apartment and subletting it is non-trivial since
| the landlord is not forced to accept it, and has no incentive
| to. Illegal sublets are common, but more inconvenient.
|
| The part about hearing more Russian that German doesn't ring
| true to me, and reeks of xenophobia. Doubly so for the non
| sequitur quip about refugees.
| Draken93 wrote:
| This will hurt the normal people and benefit big housing
| corporations only...
| jpxw wrote:
| Rent control doesn't work, and never will. It is utterly ignorant
| of economic reality. Economists on almost all sides have admitted
| this at this point. The only people left clinging on to the idea
| are politicians who do it to pander to people for votes.
| f6v wrote:
| Rent control in Berlin is just trying to fix the problem in a
| most ridiculous way. The city is obviously attractive for both
| germans, and thousands of expats from Italy, Spain, Poland,
| Russia etc. How much housing is being built in Berlin? I don't
| know. But I do know that there're no new underground stations
| being built, save for that tiny new line in the downtown. No
| new stations means the city isn't expanding at all, while more
| and more people come to live there.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| In Belgium they build a lot of social housing on unique land ( I
| think there's a requirement of 20% social housing on every large-
| scale building initiative for every city)
|
| Since it's the government that gives it to private contractors ,
| the city builds more social housing than giving land for "normal"
| housing.
|
| Creating a continuous loop of more expensive prices for normal
| houses and more social houses ( government sponsored) being
| build.
|
| It's ridiculous.
| [deleted]
| nocobot wrote:
| This is a disaster for lots of people who signed a "shadow rent"
| contract and now owe their landlords.
|
| I know quite a few friends who won't be able to pay.
|
| In many cases this essentially doubles their rent.
| nicbou wrote:
| I'm scrambling to give these people an action plan, with the
| help of more competent people in the industry. There's a senate
| meeting on Tuesday to decide how to approach this problem.
|
| On the bright side, you might still be eligible for the slower,
| less universal Mietpreisbremse. There's a lawtech startup that
| helps people get that reduction. They keep 5x the monthly
| reduction as a fee.
| jonp888 wrote:
| TBH I struggle to have sympathy for people who signed a shadow
| rent contract in the full knowledge that they could not afford
| to pay the shadow rent.
| hannob wrote:
| The interesting thing is how this will influence a referendum
| that wants to force expropriation of the largest housing
| companies ("Deutsche Wohnen und Co enteignen").
|
| When the referendum idea first came up a common argument against
| it was "there are milder measures against high rents". Now that's
| what was tried and failed.
|
| I'm almost certain the referendum will get approved. There will
| likely be legal actions against it as well, but expropriation in
| the public interest is part of the German constitution, so
| legally it seems on good grounds.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| "Buy land, they're not making it anymore"
|
| - Mark Twain
| [deleted]
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| This is a catastrophe and very disappointing.
|
| Here is a little personal anecdote: I used to live in the center
| of Berlin Mitte when I was a student, had rented a Penthouse
| apartment for 450 Euro/mo incl. additional costs (but without
| water, gas, electricity). It was affordable. Then a Bavarian
| multimillionaire bought the house from the original owners. I was
| already abroad most of the time, so I didn't experience the loud
| works his people conducted to get old renters out. However, he
| did cut off my telephone cable, something the phone technician
| realized when I returned and was able to fix.
|
| Later he threatened to build a balcony - "and this might take a
| long time" - unless I agree to pay a higher rent. The classic
| ugly move. I negotiated with him for a while and in the end the
| raise was not so bad. However, I realized that I have to get out
| anyway - he wouldn't stop until I'd have left, you cannot fight a
| landlord with evil intentions in the long run even if you're a
| member of renter protection like I was. So I left Berlin and
| never returned, not even for a visit. I never asked but would
| estimate the same apartment at around 1600 EUR/mo today, with an
| ever increasing tendency.
|
| Now I live in another country, ten years have passed, and the
| same happens in the city I live in. Rents are rising
| continuously, I've already seen people photographing the houses
| in our street, several of them are being totally renovated, new
| apartments are _always_ "luxury apartments" as if any local could
| afford these (it's a poor country, ca. 800 EUR average income),
| and an agent from Sotheby's Real Estate rang my doorbell recently
| to ask if I'm the owner of my apartment.
|
| You cannot escape this trend unless you want to live jobless on
| the countryside. I'd buy an apartment like most of my colleagues
| if I had the money, but it would mean having liabilities for the
| next 20 years and I only have time-limited contracts in Academia.
|
| It's frustrating to know there is a real risk I'll have to spend
| my later years in the most ugly suburbs and slums of an otherwise
| beautiful town, even though I have a rather decent salary in
| local terms, while most of these houses with unaffordable "luxury
| apartments" are bought by foreign investors. By the way, many of
| the new apartments are empty, apparently only serve as
| investments.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| This reminds me of the dispute on liberalizing parking space
| prices. An uber driver last week was super against it, saying
| it's not fair. His main argument? He has a price protected one.
| Meanwhile I do the 10 minute parking dance every evening, while
| going past paid, reserved and unused parking spots. (Bucharest
| btw, and they'll likely stay this way)
| varispeed wrote:
| For two years I had to drive for 1-3 hours after work each
| working day to find space, just because our local authority
| decided to make paid parking as a pilot on most streets in
| the area and mine was not included, so everyone tried to park
| on those limited free streets and I couldn't get a permit for
| pilot ones. The paid ones of course were mostly empty and
| that put enormous stress on the few free ones. Complete lack
| of imagination from people who planned this and residents
| were not consulted.
| fy20 wrote:
| > Now I live in another country, ten years have passed, and the
| same happens in the city I live in.
|
| The same is happening in my city (Baltics) too. We bought a new
| apartment 5 years ago in the city centre, at the time we paid
| EUR2250/m2 which was quite a lot. Now I'm seeing the standard
| price for new apartments being double that. The typical salary
| here is around EUR1000/mo[1], so these apartments are
| completely unaffordable to most people.
|
| We were actually looking to upgrade (as we have a 1br apartment
| and now a kid), but we wouldn't be able to afford to buy a
| bigger apartment. Instead we bought land and are building a
| house on the outskirts of the city. We got lucky there too, as
| we completed the purchase right before COVID and apparently
| land prices have gone up a lot now.
|
| You can still find barely affordable (usually older) apartments
| further out of the city, but if you want to live anywhere close
| to the centre you need to be earning a salary a good few
| multiples higher than the average.
|
| [1] Thats for the country as a whole, but salaries vary a lot
| in different regions, so maybe for where I am it's higher.
| protontorpedo wrote:
| Renting a penthouse/dachgeschoss apartment in Mitte costs more
| like 2k nowadays.
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| So, the bavarian investor who upgraded his property is the bad
| guy here? While you spend your time abroad, blocking an
| apartment in Berlin's city center? Sure, low rents from decades
| ago are nice, but there has to be an equilibrium. Houses
| depreciate and if the rent is too low there won't be any money
| left to pay for upkeep. Unless of course, the bavarian
| millionaire has to take a loss and pay for that out of his own
| pocket, because eat the rich.
| truckerbill wrote:
| The op would have sublet presumably at the previous lower
| rate.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| I was not blocking the apartment but travelling back and
| forth while doing my PhD, during one year. I lived there, and
| when I was away someone else was taking care of it. The
| Bavarian investor was definitely the bad guy, he illegally
| cut telephone cables and threatened me with making my life a
| misery in a way that was directly against German rent law. I
| had to consult with the lawyer from the rent protection
| association (Mieterschutzbund) who told me it might be better
| to keep an agreement with him since they only pursue lawsuits
| in more drastic cases - unfortunately such harassing is
| normal, although in the end illegal.
|
| The rent was not too low, it was perfectly okay for the
| previous owners and I can assure you they did not lose money.
| They made enough money to pay a company full-time to take
| care of the building and relations to the renters. They
| merely earned normal amounts instead of seeking a 1000%
| return on their investment like the guy from Bavaria. There
| are greedy and fair house owners, it's as simple as that.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| I think it's the opposite. The rent cap (at least in the way it
| was implemented) achieved nothing to solve the problems that
| exist in the Berlin rental market. It led to a huge decrease in
| rental supply. Yes, rent may have been cheap for the few people
| who managed to get a place, but it was a lottery with dozens of
| applicants for each flat. This mismatch of supply and demand is
| exactly the kind of thing that would be solved through pricing
| in normal markets.
|
| And rents rising as a city becomes a more desirable place to
| live just makes perfect sense. If you are convinced that this
| will happen in your city maybe now would be a great time to buy
| a place?
| yladiz wrote:
| > It led to a huge decrease in rental supply.
|
| This was artificial though, as landlords were waiting to know
| the outcome of this ruling. It's not like the apartments just
| vanished from existence.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Sure, but I don't think it would have gone back to 100% if
| this law hadn't been overturned, since the law made it much
| more attractive to keep a property empty in order to sell
| it at some point.
| llampx wrote:
| Empty apartments are more attractive for buyers but if
| your intention is to rent it anyway, it wouldn't have
| made a difference, as the Mietendeckel ensured you
| couldn't rent it for more than what the previous tenant
| was paying.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > This mismatch of supply and demand is exactly the kind of
| thing that would be solved through pricing in normal markets.
|
| The very opposite. The market optimizes for maximum
| profitability, not for maximum savings for renters or best
| quality of life.
|
| There's a reason why governments have been building cheap
| housing across the last 100 years in most developed
| countries.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| The market is how we find a compromise between tenants'
| desire for low rents and landlords' desire for high rents.
| I don't think you can say it optimizes for landlord
| profitability but it obviously also doesn't optimize for
| savings of renters. I agree that this is not perfect, but I
| think it's the fairest proxy we got. Attempts at regulating
| rents directly usually end up causing all sorts of unwanted
| side effects and make things worse for both tenants and
| landlords.
|
| That said, I'm not opposed to the government building cheap
| housing. I think that's actually the best solution to an
| undersupply of housing.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > I think it's the fairest proxy we got
|
| You are simply rehashing the idea that free market is
| holy and magic. Instead, housing is inelastic. Also,
| apartments are non-fungible goods.
|
| Furthermore, they have a ton of externalities. (e.g.
| access to transportation, shops, workplaces, schools)
|
| All of this breaks every assumption around free market
| theory. Unsurprisingly, governments intervene heavily in
| the housing market almost in every developed country. The
| only exceptions lead to a combination of slumslords
| exploiting the poorest people and gated communities for
| the wealthy.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| >>You are simply rehashing the idea that free market is
| holy and magic. Instead, housing is inelastic.
|
| Housing is not inelastic at all. Economists have studied
| the effects of laws reducing land-use rights, and have
| found they impose massive social costs, in the form of
| less housing construction, that leads to less affordable
| housing.
|
| https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388
| goodpoint wrote:
| > less housing construction, that leads to less
| affordable housing
|
| You mean that decreasing housing supply correlates with
| increasing price?
|
| Because that's exactly what inelastic demand is:
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/inelastic.asp
| qayxc wrote:
| > If you are convinced that this will happen in your city
| maybe now would be a great time to buy a place?
|
| Did you miss the part were they explained they can't do it
| because they only have a temporary assignment? This sounds a
| lot like "just be rich".
|
| The reality is that a lot of people simply cannot afford to
| just "buy a place". According to some statistics [0], 40% of
| Americans (i.e. a "rich" country), are just one missed
| paycheck (or unexpected expenditure) away from homelessness.
| If you belong to the 60% that aren't and never experienced
| the situation, I understand how foreign the concept might
| seem to you.
|
| [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/40-of-americans-one-step-
| from-p...
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Yeah, that comment was admittedly a bit flippant. But I
| would say that OP can't expect to have the flexibility and
| low capital requirements of renting but get the benefits of
| stability and profiting from price increases that a
| property owner would have. There are sacrifices in terms of
| work and flexibility (and location) that people make
| because they want to buy their property.
| hawos wrote:
| There are dozens of appicants for each flat anyway, with or
| without the cap.
|
| Not everyone can just buy a place, if rents keep increasing
| only rich people will be able to afford living in the city,
| you need a lot of non-rich people to actually run the city
| though: cashiers, nurses, teachers, firefighters etc. It's
| not that easy.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| I know the market isn't perfect, but in theory if lowly
| paid workers can't afford to live in the city anymore
| they'll start looking for jobs elsewhere, which will force
| their employers to raise wages.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Sorry to be so blunt but that theory is really just
| false. There are no jobs elsewhere, the jobs are in the
| city. I'm also not a "lowly paid worker", I'm in the
| highest quartile of income in my country and work as a
| full-time researcher at university. Nevertheless, there
| is no cap on the rents in my area and they continuously
| increase even for my existing contract. They have
| increased sometimes by several hundred percent for new
| contracts in my area, so if we ever had to leave our
| current apartment, we'd be forced to spend more than 3/2
| of our salaries on rent alone. Even relatively well-off
| families will have troubles getting affordable living
| space in the foreseeable future, thanks to AirBnB,
| hostels, and long-term investments into (right now mostly
| empty) luxury apartments. How the average family can do
| it in my country is mysterious to me, but I'd wager most
| of them only can because they have very old rent
| contracts which do not have in-built rent progression.
|
| The market forces you refer to are fictitious. What
| happens in reality is that the middle class is dwindling,
| there is an ever increasing divide between land and house
| owners and mere renters, and at some point in the more
| distant future the whole system will break down.
| wrthfl wrote:
| You actually made me create a HN-Account to reply to this.
|
| This is not true. The cap didn't apply to new flats. Which
| means that nobody wanted to invest and build new housing, but
| instead created artificial scarcity, there are a lot of empty
| buildings now because very few people can afford some of the
| abhorrent prices.
|
| So yeah supply and demand totally worked. /s
| geezeresque wrote:
| Berlin is the emergent Manhattan of Europe, it's cultural (and in
| this case, political) hub. It won't be cheaper than Paris, London
| or New York.
| hnarn wrote:
| I'd venture a guess and say I'm very much an outlier in the HN
| crowd, because I consider myself a socialist. Even with that
| said, I don't really understand the long-term logic behind rent
| caps, and I don't think it does much for fighting the old trope
| that "socialists are economically illiterate" either.
|
| If you have a finite supply of something, like housing, it seems
| pretty obvious that the reason the price is going up is because
| the supply is unable to catch up with demand. Not only do more
| people want to live in the city, they're also willing and able to
| pay more. The mechanics are obviously more complex because this
| is all affected by things like interest rates, influx of foreign
| capital and whatever, but I think the basic assumption still
| stands: there's not enough housing.
|
| So if we approach this problem from a "neo liberal" and a
| "socialist" point of view, I think there are two ways you'd
| normally go about it, none of which include capping rents because
| that achieves nothing except make people hoard the commodity that
| was previously rare, and is now even more rare because of market
| manipulation:
|
| Neo-lib: The market will take care of it, and poor people being
| pushed out is not a problem, they can live somewhere cheaper and
| new housing will be built because builders want to make money.
|
| Socialist: Poor people have a right to live here too, but there
| is a lack of affordable housing. We should tax the rich to enable
| a wider array of housing financed by the state.
|
| Regardless of which extreme (or somewhere in between you are) I
| still can't understand what rent caps would achieve apart from
| being a destructive policy for almost everyone except the ones
| who already are lucky enough to have a contract. You don't get
| more houses to live in by making the houses a more valuable
| commodity through market manipulation.
| redmeatforchina wrote:
| I don't even live in Germany or Europe, so why am I happy about
| this?
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| San Fran also has rent control.
|
| Ya know, the same place that YC is located & many of the
| current unicorns.
|
| It's interesting to understand how other cities and countries
| are dealing with similar issues to what we face.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Because a better country eventually makes a better world for
| everyone, and a worse country eventually makes a worse world
| for everyone.
| fluiux wrote:
| It's not necessarily good news for a lot of people. It's only
| good for people who like to speculate with real estate. So why
| are you happy about this?
| kmmlng wrote:
| The issue with an approach like this is that it's merely
| fighting the symptoms of the underlying problem. The
| underlying problem is that you have more demand than supply
| and something is preventing the market from rectifying this
| problem. Capping rents can only make the underlying problem
| worse, because there is now less incentive to create new
| housing.
|
| Now, of course, you might say the thing that is preventing
| the market from rectifying the situation is that there simply
| isn't enough space. And that is partially true, there are
| real physical limits here. But it's not like Berlin is a
| super high density city, so I find it hard to believe that
| we're anywhere close to reaching those limits.
| pandem wrote:
| Also good for people who want to move to Berlin as
| mietendeckel made it much more difficult to get an apartment.
| Also good for people renting through the gray market of
| sublets as it makes it easier for them to get a real
| contract.
| llampx wrote:
| You tell me
| grecht wrote:
| This is great. I also want affordable housing for everyone, but
| capping rents does not deal with the core problem: There's not
| enough supply. I am baffled how some people do not understand
| this.
|
| Also, for many people in Germany buying e.g. a single apartment
| is an investment for their later retirement. It's not all big and
| evil real estate companies.
| tootahe45 wrote:
| Everybody understands this, except people taking part in
| movements hijacked by the wealthy to block any new
| developments. Here in New Zealand they are using indigenous
| groups to achieve the goal of blocking new builds, in Germany
| it's the green movements.
|
| Something tells me governments are also interested in real
| estate prices going up.
| throw4738 wrote:
| It is unconstitutional because it treats people unequally. New
| people will not find any rentable properties, and will have to
| stay in hotels paying 10x more.
|
| It is just another form of xenophobia.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| I don't follow you. Why limiting the prices for renting, will
| be less rentable properties, the point of this is to make
| rentable properties have a price where people can rent a
| property to live.
| [deleted]
| ArgyleSound wrote:
| That's why it's bad but not why it was found unconstitutional
| vkou wrote:
| That is a horrible argument, because the same can be said for
| land ownership. Isn't it unfair that when I move somewhere, I
| discover that all the land in that area is already owned by
| someone else. Why should some old history entitle someone to
| exclusive ownership of any piece of land, and the ability to
| charge arbitrary rents for it?
|
| The fact of the matter is, first movers have all sorts of
| unfair advantages over latecomers, many of them from luck, or
| from circumstances of birth - and I doubt you are seeking to
| overturn all of them.
| jariel wrote:
| " I move somewhere, I discover that all the land in that area
| is already owned by someone else. "
|
| Why do you think that for a moment you have a right to 'go
| over there' and posses land currently owned by people over
| there?
| vkou wrote:
| Because of the parent poster's thesis that it's unfair that
| the first people to move somewhere get advantages.
|
| I am just taking that axiom to it's logical, but absurd
| conclusion, to argue that the axiom itself is absurd.
| throw4738 wrote:
| No, this system is more like feudalism or serfdom. When I
| move in, you expect me to work on your land, so protected
| class does not have to work.
|
| Young people and foreigners have to pay large taxes and
| rents, to subside older people.
| vkou wrote:
| Young people become old people, serfs don't become feudal
| lords.
|
| Foreigners can naturalize (and most of them have the
| freedom to weigh the costs of paying into systems they
| don't benefit from, and consider whether or not immigrating
| is worth it.)
| cbmuser wrote:
| No, it's unconstitutional because the Berlin government was
| passing a law which conflicted with federal law (BGB) which
| regulates rents in Germany.
|
| Also, the Berlin government was retroactively changing (rent)
| contracts which normally invalidates any contract as this will
| always put one contract party at an unprecedented disadvantage.
| Isn0gud wrote:
| Well, it's not like new people will find affordable housing
| now...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It is unconstitutional because it treats people unequally.
|
| Wrong, it was declared unconstitutional because only the
| federal government is allowed to pass such a measure. Our
| federal construction minister "Voll-Horst" Seehofer is free to
| regulate rents any time he wants, but unfortunately all he has
| been doing for the last four years is to deny systemic issues
| in police all day.
|
| > New people will not find any rentable properties, and will
| have to stay in hotels paying 10x more.
|
| So what? Without rent control poor people are forced out of the
| homes they grew up in, this is certainly worse than tech
| hipsters having to pay for hotels.
| Tomte wrote:
| > Wrong, it was declared unconstitutional because only the
| federal government is allowed to pass such a measure.
|
| That's wrong. States may do it, but only if the federal level
| hasn't acted in that field (here: social protection for
| renters)
| est31 wrote:
| The Berlin rent cap is different from rent caps elsewhere, say
| SF. The Berlin rent cap includes new contracts, too.
| throw4738 wrote:
| Not if you stay months in hotel or Airbnb. And that is only
| available option.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| AirBnB is part of the problem btw. There are at least 4
| fulltime AirBnB flats on my building floor (that I'm aware
| of). I'm assuming it's AirBnB because there's a very high
| "fluctuation" of new people in those flats (few days to 2
| or 3 weeks). Imagine if all those AirBnBs would be
| available for longterm renting ;)
| HotHotLava wrote:
| Since 2014 you need to have an official permission to use
| a flat for AirBnb. If you suspect these are illegally
| rented out, you can report them to the Berlin government
| here:
|
| https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/wohnen/zweckentfre
| mdu...
| throw4738 wrote:
| It is like saying refugees are part of the problem,
| because they are taking flats from the market. People who
| rent Airbnb also have a right to be in Berlin.
|
| And this policy is pushing more flats from normal market
| into airbnbs.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Dude, the people booking those AirBnBs are not refugees
| but well-paid tech-bros and party tourists. Gimme a
| break.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Berlin with its Red-Red-Green government is hardly a city
| governed by xenophobia. OTOH, the German left is even more pro-
| immigration and pro-multiculturalism than an average European
| leftist party.
|
| This law was probably meant against big housing corporations
| like Deutsches Wohnen, which bought a lot of the housing stock
| during previous privatizations, and so have some power on the
| housing market.
|
| IMHO Berlin (just like Prague) needs to lower bureaucratic
| hurdles on new construction, but maybe the locals do not want
| that. There was a chance to turn the former Tempelhof airfield
| into a new neighbourhood, but a local ballot turned it down.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Tempelhoferfeld is the best park in Berlin. Parks provide
| value too. They should build up instead of sprawling like the
| most terrible cities in the world do.
| [deleted]
| yokaze wrote:
| > They should build up instead of sprawling like the most
| terrible cities in the world do
|
| When I was in Berlin, it seemed to me people in Berlin
| wanted the impossible combination:
|
| - Continue to afford to live in the city (ergo more housing
| in the city)
|
| - No sprawl to keep the car traffic down (ergo still more
| pressure on housing in the city)
|
| - Keeping the green spaces (so no denser housing)
|
| - No higher buildings, or God forbid, high-risers (so no
| denser housing)
|
| Or better said, you would find people, who are dead set
| against high-risers and would tolerate building on
| Tempelhofer Feld, or who are dead set against using spaces
| within the city (Tempelholfer Feld), but would probably
| tolerate higher buildings.
|
| It seems now, higher buildings have won: https://www.berlin
| .de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2...
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Yes this is a problem. Berlin is full of people who think
| it is their duty to be against everything.
| amne wrote:
| higher rent can only lead to 10 euro pretzels and 50 euro pizzas.
| and then it all collapses and starts all over again.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html
|
| >The Effects of Rent Control
|
| >Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent
| controls are destructive. In a 1990 poll of 464 economists
| published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review,
| 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed, either completely or with
| provisos, that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and
| quality of housing available."1 Similarly, another study reported
| that more than 95 percent of the Canadian economists polled
| agreed with the statement.2 The agreement cuts across the usual
| political spectrum, ranging all the way from Nobel Prize winners
| milton friedman and friedrich hayek on the "right" to their
| fellow Nobel laureate gunnar myrdal, an important architect of
| the Swedish Labor Party's welfare state, on the "left." Myrdal
| stated, "Rent control has in certain Western countries
| constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by
| governments lacking courage and vision."3 His fellow Swedish
| economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck asserted, "In many cases
| rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently
| known to destroy a city--except for bombing."4 That cities like
| New York have clearly not been destroyed by rent control is due
| to the fact that rent control has been relaxed over the years.5
| Rent stabilization, for example, which took the place of rent
| control for newer buildings, is less restrictive than the old
| rent control. Also, the decades-long boom in the New York City
| housing market is not in rent-controlled or rent-stabilized
| units, but in condominiums and cooperative housing. But these two
| forms of housing ownership grew important as a way of getting
| around rent control.
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| An example of how bad the government in Berlin is would be the
| Pankower Tor project:
| https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/froschlurch-muss-umgesied...
|
| 34 hectars (>90 acres) of waste land in a prime location can't be
| bulldozed to build 2000 new apartments because a rare species of
| toad was found to be living there, which can't be relocated
| because no state agency is responsible. The court case has been
| running for over 10 years!!!
| qayxc wrote:
| A few years ago I would've agreed.
|
| Today I'm leaning more towards - "so what?".
|
| As long as there's obviously enough space to waste on detached
| houses and land speculation in the middle of the city, it can't
| be all that bad.
|
| If it was really such a big deal, "someone" would've paid
| "somebody" already to relocate the animals "after business
| hours", if you catch my drift. There's more going on behind the
| scenes for sure that we just don't know about.
| llampx wrote:
| It is that bad, but the people who are affected are not the
| ones making the decisions. Just like with the Mietendeckel.
| The politicians have nice apartments and villas already and
| high incomes, same with the ones who want to reduce welfare
| payments. They are rarely affected by the policies they
| enact.
| qayxc wrote:
| > It is that bad, but the people who are affected are not
| the ones making the decisions.
|
| It could be argued that they are - both indirectly (by
| electing the representatives that do make the decisions)
| and directly (by lack of [legal!] activism for their
| cause).
|
| It's a case of pointing fingers instead of lifting a
| finger.
|
| edit: what I mean by that is votes and protests do matter
| as does providing reasonable alternatives. I see that
| happen way too little in Germany. Try something in France
| and they set half of Paris on fire each time; not that I
| think that's better, but at least it shows that people
| actually care.
| corty wrote:
| > If it was really such a big deal, "someone" would've paid
| "somebody" already to relocate the animals "after business
| hours", if you catch my drift. There's more going on behind
| the scenes for sure that we just don't know about.
|
| Doesn't work, the next thing that will happen is the tree-
| huggers (B.U.N.D. and others) will get public money to re-
| establish the population and impose stricter protection
| measures. In Germany, the environment gets far far better
| protection than the people.
| qayxc wrote:
| > In Germany, the environment gets far far better
| protection than the people.
|
| So how come Glyphosat wasn't banned immediately then? How
| come nitrate in drinking water goes up [0] and treatment
| becomes ever more expensive while at the same time
| industrial livestock farming still gets heavily subsidised?
|
| German politics still bends a knee to industrial farming,
| chemical industry, and heavy industry more than the
| environment, don't fool yourself.
|
| There's a reason the insect population has decreased by
| over 70% in the last 3 decades [1]. All because the
| environment is top priority, I presume.
|
| The reality is that still no-one cares and the few things
| that are being done (tunnels and bridges for wildlife to
| cross roads, relocation programs for endangered species,
| etc.) are blown out of proportion by critics while the big
| picture looks bleaker than ever.
|
| FYI there's ain't going to be many trees around for the
| "tree huggers" to hug in a few years if things continue to
| go the way they do [2]. But yeah, it's all to easy with the
| us-vs.-them instead of tackling actual roots of the
| problems...
|
| [0]
| www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/wasser/grundwasser/nutzung-
| belastungen/faqs-zu-nitrat-im-grund-trinkwasser
|
| [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/19/europe/insect-
| decline-ger...
|
| [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.de/umwelt/2021/02/deutsc
| her-w...
| corty wrote:
| Well, yes. Because environmental activism is basically an
| instrument of NIMBYism, not anything based on facts,
| evidence or logic. Nobody really protests when farmers
| spread their poison, because that would be inconveniently
| far away, lots of work, etc. But protesting about the
| destruction of the neighbouring daisy habitat is an easy
| feel-good measure, and if you can NIMBY you way into
| higher value of your real estate by scarcer ground for
| housing construction, all the better.
| qayxc wrote:
| And you don't see the contradiction there? On the one
| hand you say that the environment is protected more than
| the people yet here you argue that it's actually the
| people who benefit instead of nature.
|
| Which is it?
| realityking wrote:
| Without arguing about the merits of protecting that species of
| toads, you can't blame the Berlin government for things that
| are governed by federal and EU law.
|
| Ultimately the owner/investor either has to find a way to move
| the toads or apply for an exception. Without an application,
| the state government can't act.
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| well see that's the issue, state won't make an exception and
| owner can't move the toads
| llampx wrote:
| The government in Berlin is hardly an exception. The rot goes
| to the top. The entire government is composed of incompetent
| Beamter biding their time till their fat pension, stuck in the
| good old days when you didn't have to do any work until the
| Oberstleutnant gave you an order.
| akie wrote:
| Well that's very disappointing.
| gambiting wrote:
| It's not, rent caps are a great idea in principle but in
| reality it just massively constrains the supply which means
| that yeah, if you find a place to rent you will pay a
| "reasonable" rate, but there's 200 people willing to rent any
| place so when landlords aren't allowed to compete on price they
| compete on everything else. It leads to insanities like
| landlords requiring 6+ months of rent upfront, very long
| contracts, very strict(boardering on abusive) rental
| terms.......since the demand FAR outstrips the supply as a
| landlord you can get away with pretty much anything because
| there are always more people willing to rent.
|
| For those downvoting - look at literally any city that has
| implemented rent caps and tell me that they are a good idea.
| Where the standard became asking for 6 months upfront and
| signing a 3-year-no-exit-clause contracts because the demand is
| so huge it allows landlords to do that. Is that really a net
| benefit to people renting?
| crumbshot wrote:
| It all depends on how it's implemented. The usual method of
| controlling rent is to cap only a subset of properties in an
| area - for example, leaving new builds or new tenancies
| exempt. Which tends to create a two-tier system that benefits
| one set of tenants at the expense of the other, while
| discouraging reallocation for downsizing and suchlike. And as
| you allude to, without further restrictions on tenancy
| contract terms, the private landlords will attempt to extract
| their pound of flesh in other ways.
|
| On the other hand, if rent controls are used as part of a
| wider strategy to gradually convert private rental stock over
| to social housing - that is, as a stick to encourage private
| landlords to sell up to the public sector - along with other
| measures including more state investment in building such
| housing, large fines for private landlords leaving their
| rental properties unoccupied, and so on, then this can be a
| long-term positive on the overall housing situation.
|
| The end goal should be to remove this wholly unnecessary
| parasitic landlord class from the housing provision entirely,
| rather than tinkering around the edges of the problem, as
| this Berlin measure was doing.
| codekansas wrote:
| In some US cities like Portland the construction costs for
| public housing are typically double costs for comparable
| private housing. The government has little motivation or
| expertise to reduce the cost since the bill is footed by
| the public. Seems much more parasitic in my opinion
| crumbshot wrote:
| That's a separate issue, assuming it really is an issue,
| and not just an indication that those private housing
| developments in Portland are being constructed with a
| cheaper, lower build quality so that their investors can
| generate more profit.
| inb4_cancelled wrote:
| I am happy about it, since I live in Prague (capital of one of
| their neighbors) and the local green/left was kinda waiting for
| this to go through.
| unixhero wrote:
| Why? So that investment or people will move eastwards?
|
| What about the thriving culture which exists in Berlin, and
| which is supported by low rent prices.
| est31 wrote:
| Full text of the court decision (German):
| https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid...
|
| Shorter press release (German, too):
| https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit...
|
| It's a classical application of the "federal law breaks state
| law" rule, which I think exists in the united states as well.
| ketzu wrote:
| Basically a note from the press release:
|
| There are various categories where the states or federal have
| the power to enact laws. In this case, it is part of the
| competing law section: As long as the federal government has
| not provided a conclusive law on the topic, the states may make
| their own laws. For renting there is conclusive law, so states
| are not allowed to make new laws regarding the topic.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| I thought it was more "Federal law has already decided this and
| the state can't be more restrictive than the Federal law"
| DangerousPie wrote:
| You mean "federal law trumps state law"?
| est31 wrote:
| Yes. That's probably the analogous name from the english
| language sphere. In German, the rule is named "Bundesrecht
| bricht Landesrecht". I made a more direct translation to make
| it more similar to the original German name.
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesrecht_bricht_Landesrecht
|
| The phrase "Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht" is even part of
| the German constitution, as Article 31.
| [deleted]
| luckylion wrote:
| Keep in mind that when they say Berlin's rents are soaring, it's
| still comparatively cheap for large cities in Germany.
| gryzzly wrote:
| That is simply not the case anymore. Neither are the sale
| prices low anymore. You will now pay same m2 price as in West-
| est west, like at the border with Switzerland.
| luckylion wrote:
| Please compare Berlin prices with Hamburg, Dusseldorf or
| Munich. It's really not close, Berlin is largely still
| 10-15EUR/sqm, peaking to 20.
|
| Similar offers in e.g. Hamburg are 20, peaking to 30EUR/sqm.
| And it's been this way for a decade or two. Having lived in
| Hamburg, whenever I was with Berlin friends and heard their
| complaints, they usually turned into being happy for the good
| fortune not to have to pay _those_ prices when they compared
| it not with Berlin 10 years ago, but with Hamburg today.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Irrelevant unless compared to local salaries, which as far as I
| know, are still lower than the rest of German cities.
| [deleted]
| luckylion wrote:
| Rents are ~30% lower (my estimate based on my experience),
| salaries are ~10-20% lower (varies over industries, not
| really relevant for large companies). Sounds like you're
| still getting a good deal if you live in Berlin.
|
| Many other things are cheaper as well. Power is -10% in
| Berlin for example, compared to Hamburg. Local taxes are also
| lower, e.g. business tax rate in Berlin is 410% while it's
| 470% in Hamburg.
|
| I get the impression that it's mostly the citizens of Berlin
| not knowing what things cost elsewhere.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Berlin has less than 1% of empty rental apartments which is
| extremely low.
|
| This means that the rents do actually reflect the real
| market.
|
| And there is simply no right for a cheap apartment in the
| center of Berlin.
| avh02 wrote:
| technically, yes.
|
| but the reality is that the population is changing. I've
| only been here a few years but basically everybody who's
| been here longer says "it's not what it used to be" in that
| the vibe of the city has changed greatly with it's
| increasing attractiveness to foreign (tech?) workers.
|
| The "original" inhabitants of the city are priced out in
| "favour" of expats. The "real market" itself is obviously
| both combined, but one segment can afford the higher
| prices, and there's an ever increasing number in that
| segment that is shifting it for everyone.
|
| Obviously I see that I'm ironically part of the problem.
| luckylion wrote:
| > everybody who's been here longer says "it's not what it
| used to be" in that the vibe of the city has changed
| greatly with it's increasing attractiveness to foreign
| (tech?) workers.
|
| Meh. The people who say that have displaced the people
| who lived there before they moved to Berlin. And the
| people who lived there before they came also said that
| when they arrived. The people complaining about this the
| most aren't "original" inhabitants, they moved to Berlin
| 10-20 years ago because it was cheap, hip, and had less
| rules around things. They've changed Berlin. Now it's
| changing again. The circle of change, if you will.
| They've done it to others, now it's being done to them.
| Sucks every time, but claiming some sort of "the
| indigenous population gets removed" is false.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Cities change, often for the worse. Replacing the people
| that made a city's culture notable because they can't
| afford it is not good for anyone.
|
| Lower Manhattan is a shining example of this. That area
| is built on the memory of artists who can no longer
| afford to live there. It's a weird sort of fossilization
| and museumification.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Replacing the people that made a city's culture notable
| because they can't afford it is not good for anyone.
|
| Berlin's attraction in the last 70 years (from the
| Western perspective) has been that it's cheap, has kind
| of an frontier spirit, laws and rules are much less
| strict, and it's being well-funded as an enclave and a
| thorn in East-Germany's side (it's still losing money,
| and is a drag on the German economy; capitals in
| comparable Western countries are typically strong
| economic motors in their country [1]).
|
| For many young men, Germany's draft (or the alternative
| civil service) could only be circumvented by moving to
| Berlin.
|
| With the Reunification, Berlin was on track to become the
| capital once more. That meant: gigantic amounts of money,
| jobs and opportunities, and that in return made Berlin
| extremely attractive. Before that happened, Berlin was
| actually shrinking.
|
| With the government moved many large corporations in
| Germany, and brought even more money and jobs. They made
| Berlin attractive. It wasn't Berlin's night life and
| cultural scene, those are a consequence of the
| attractiveness and funding, not the other way round. So
| it's really not that those who built it are being forced
| out. It's that those who were attracted to it have to
| share with other people who want to also live there.
| Sucks for them, I agree, but there's nothing unfair about
| it. It will also happen to those moving there today, and
| they'll complain as well.
|
| [1] https://qz.com/753244/berlin-is-the-only-capital-
| city-in-eur...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Rents pretty much always reflect the "real market". There
| can be speculation on property but there is no speculative
| gain to be made on renting and the demand for rental
| properties reflects the actual demand for housing.
|
| Obviously when more people want to rent than there are
| properties available rents go up.
|
| This is why rent caps do not solve problems. They ignore
| and do not address the cause of high rents and they may
| make things worse by reducing supply and making tenants
| stay put.
|
| And as you say not everyone can live in the most desirable
| areas, which will always be pricey.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| If salaries were so bad, people would stop moving to Berlin
| and rents would fall. The fact that housing is still under
| such high demand shows that Berlin is clearly still a
| desirable place to live.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I don't think salary is the only or even primary reason
| people move to Berlin.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Sure, but in the end the market rents will still reflect
| the desirability of living in Berlin. Whether that's
| because of salaries, culture, transport or something
| else.
| llampx wrote:
| Yes but the only thing keeping the prices halfway reasonable
| are the laws and regulations that apply in Berlin. Without
| those the situation would be much worse.
| dsnr wrote:
| Curious, what are those laws and regulations that apply in
| Berlin and are different from any other german city?
| adrianN wrote:
| I wish Berlin would just build more housing instead. For example
| when I cross the street there is a supermarket. It's a single
| story building with a huge parking lot around it. Why not make it
| a multistory building with apartments on top of the supermarket
| and skip the parking space or put it underground? Why does the
| city give out building permits for such buildings? There could
| easily be room for thirty families on that lot. A single parking
| spot is like 12m^2, two parking spots and three storys above them
| and you have an apartment for two to three people.
| kokey wrote:
| How things have changed. I remember going to Berlin around 15
| years ago and was surprised how cheap the property was there.
| At the time it was a city where the population wasn't growing
| for a very long time, but had good infrastructure and more
| supply and demand especially to the East. Large apartments in
| established neighbourhoods were the norm. There was also not
| much in the way of jobs going for working in tech, or else I
| would probably have moved there as soon as I landed an
| opportunity to do so. The tech jobs and the young talent found
| each other there and the rest is history and this spike in
| demand keeps luring in more property speculators. It's a
| difficult situation to fix, the real fix here is a policy to
| increase housing supply dramatically. Unfortunately the
| financial incentives against this is very strong, because a
| critical mass of people have an interest in even higher prices.
| Putting controls on the trade of existing properties (e.g.
| making mortgages less accessible) or taxing landlords higher
| results in a shortage of rental properties and makes the prices
| rise even further. Rent control to try curb this leads to
| further shortages.
| frereubu wrote:
| I imagine this might be implicit in your comment, but it's
| politically much easier to bring in a rent cap ("protecting the
| hard-working families of Berlin") than hand out building
| permits ("overdevelopment!") Issuing more building permits also
| takes a long time to have any effect on rents, so by the time
| it takes effect the politician who brought it in is likely to
| be long gone. More permits will only happen if politicians can
| stop bickering amongst themselves and agree that more housing
| is the way forward (which it clearly is, compared to rent
| controls).
| dgellow wrote:
| I'm not convinced that it is politically easier, the rent cap
| is a very controversial topic (for good reasons, it's really
| an extreme measure). A fringe may like that talking point,
| but that's not how you do effective policies.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| In Berlin it is a good talking point. I am not commenting
| on whether it is effective or good policy, just that you
| can score politically with it (well, until the court now
| killed it, I suppose).
|
| Concerns about being able to afford rent not just now but
| in the future is a major concern for a huge chunk of the
| population. They look at what happens in other large cities
| with rent prices (be it Munich, be it Paris, be it SF) in
| fear.
|
| Berlin itself uses an unofficial slogan of "Arm aber Sexy"
| ("poor but sexy/attractive"), coined by a former Berlin
| major referring to the budget of the city but adopted by
| the population to mean the people living there as well.
| They fear that driving out poor people - including
| themselves - and turn it into yet another place for the
| rich, and/or fear "over-development" will destroy the
| character of the city (and the ecological consequences of
| such developments; the Green party is big in certain parts
| of Berlin).
|
| I can see that with my sisters, who have been living in
| downtown-ish Berlin for a long time while "poor" (think
| student, almost-unpaid intern, unemployed), and who
| constantly complained about the rents (that my parents and
| later welfare paid) and scarcity of available apartments,
| but at the same time were e.g. very much against any plans
| to develop the large area of the old closed Tempelhof
| airport, where all plans to develop that area were
| abandoned after multiple public referendums decided that
| the area has to remain a "park". That alone is 12km2 of now
| entirely unused space close to the heart of the city, space
| for about at least 50000 people considering Berlins current
| population density of 4118 people per km2. Or develop only
| half of it, and leave 6km2 and that's still a ton of new
| apartments. But nope.
| corty wrote:
| In Berlin, rent control isn't a fringe topic. Half of
| Berlin was formerly communist (the east) with the non-
| conformists being sent out to the sticks. And the other
| half has a higher proportion of (partly radical) leftists
| due to the federal draft not applying in Berlin (so young,
| mostly left-leaning, males moved to west Berlin to avoid
| serving in the military). So the general population in
| Berlin is rather more friendly to ideas such as communal
| property, rent control and generally sticking it to the
| evil capitalist man.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| They're building housing all the time. There are 3-4 housing
| blocks being build near me. One office building being built.
| Everyone keeps acting like they can just build new housing over
| night.
|
| To be fair, construction work in Berlin is super slow.
| sabjut wrote:
| Well in recent months the Tesla Giga Berlin factory has shown
| just how fast construction can take place if the people in
| power actually want it to happen. Building new housing units
| in the city slows the increase in value of existing real
| estate, which is why property owners are not rushing to allow
| the construction of new structures. Lobbyism is a powerful
| force in real estate.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| This is not the greatest example. There is still no final
| permit for the whole thing, only temporary ones. It is
| embarrassing and a textbook case of pointless German
| bureaucracy, misguided environmentalism and NIMBYism.
| corty wrote:
| The Gigafactory near Berlin is still on a temporary permit,
| meaning that they might have to tear it down again (at
| least in large parts) if the bureaucracy finds a nit to
| pick. There is still the possibility of more problems due
| to environmental protection regulations for the surrounding
| forest and the water supply.
|
| All in all, while some politicians may have suggested that
| the Gigafactory is an example of a fast project they made
| possible, they no longer do so. Because actually it is a
| perfect example of everything being regulated to death,
| dog-slow bureaucracy and crazy risks you have to take as a
| business if you want things done fast. Where "fast" is
| still slow compared to the rest of the world.
|
| No housing construction will ever go to the lengths Tesla
| did in terms of risk for a fast construction. Housing
| investment is notoriously risk-averse in any case.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| To be fair, it's not he people in power it's the
| construction companies. The amount of workers on a building
| site in Germany is way lower than in other places. And then
| you get the ones where they put 2-3 people for 2-3 weeks
| every 6 months.
| corty wrote:
| Depends. Public construction is very different from
| private and industrial construction. As the industry pays
| well, on time and demands results, their construction
| sites are staffed to the fullest amount possible and
| complete astonishingly fast.
|
| Public construction on the other hand goes with the
| cheapest bidder, so doesn't pay that well. Also, the
| state will only pay after a lengthy process of
| inspections and trying to find something wrong with the
| finished building. So lots of companies just avoid public
| bids, because they cannot afford to finance all the
| materials and work pay for the duration of the build.
| Those that can afford it are companies that specialize in
| public construction sites, usually designed to be able to
| go bankrupt at the first sign of trouble.
|
| Generally, in a public construction site, all contractors
| are lowest bidders. Some do intentionally bid lower than
| cost to get the contract. What they then try to do to
| recoup their cost is to try to find some problem that
| wasn't spelled out in the bidding, or to wait for some
| change of plans or regulations. Because they then can
| bill a lot more for the additional work and material
| necessary to fix the problem, or hold up the construction
| site in lengthy court proceedings. Because everyone knows
| that something like that will happen at some point, they
| intentionally go as slow as possible, waiting for the
| order to drop everything and wait for the courts. Because
| if they are quick and invest a lot of work and material,
| they might not survive the delay.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > As the industry pays well, on time and demands results,
| their construction sites are staffed to the fullest
| amount possible and complete astonishingly fast.
|
| In my opinion, compared to other countries things that
| would be built within 8-12 months take 2 years.
| corty wrote:
| Yes, that might be the case. I'm just comparing to the
| average German construction site.
| pizzapill wrote:
| The factory is located somewhere in Brandenburg. There is a
| difference in building a factory on farmland vs. a house
| block in a large city.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Paradoxically, more housing also increases rents. More citizens
| in the city leads to higher salaries, attracting even more
| citizens that need more housing...
| tonyjstark wrote:
| Same here. The city itself should build as many cheap rental
| apartments as possible, also in more higher-priced areas to
| keep the pricing there in check. Building more housing is the
| only way out of this soaring pricing.
|
| EDIT: not only rental apartments of course but more housing in
| general.
|
| A second step would be, to make sure that rental housing is
| used for that instead of AirBNB or any other investment. It
| would also help to reduce land transfer tax if someone then
| lives in the bought flat. Speculators and builders anyway get
| around it in the long term by founding businesses that buy
| apartment blocks (pay the tax once) and then later only trade
| the shares of these businesses.
|
| And last but not least, they should stop to discuss
| dispossessing property. It does not solve anything but wastes
| time and energy.
| calaphos wrote:
| High mandated standards on Fire/Noise Protection, Insulation,
| accessibility on new buildings make it really hard to build
| "cheap" rental apartments. With the mandated standards in
| place there is little to no cost difference between high cost
| and low cost residential buildings.
|
| Those standards obviously have their benefits or are
| unavoidable (fire protection) and result in new housing being
| high quality. But they make it hard to address housing
| shortages in a non long term way.
| mattmanser wrote:
| So here in the UK, our councils used to build social housing.
| 300,000 per year. And then Thatcher made it illegal and said
| privately owned housing associations would fill the gap.
|
| In the 30 years since then, the most they've ever managed is
| 30,000.
|
| It's not in private landowner's interest to build cheap
| social housing. It reduces rents, it suppresses property
| values. So they don't get built.
|
| If they do build anything, it's in their interests to build
| luxury apartments. They make the most money out of those. I
| know little about Berlin's housing, but by any chance would
| there be a lot of expensive apartments being built?
|
| Did something similar happen in German history? You'll
| probably find all the big landowners in Berlin and Germany
| lobbying very hard to make sure nothing like this ever
| happens.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I know of some related things going on here:
|
| * Typically in Germany, social housing is built with a
| time-limit built in: after X years, the house falls out of
| the social housing program and can be rented and sold
| freely. At the moment, a lot more houses leave the system
| then are added.
|
| * Many cities sold their real estate after the financial
| crisis to give the money to the failing banks. I.e. Berlin
| is super-broke, in parts because of a big banking scandal
| of the previous government.
|
| * In Munich they have a pretty decent system: anyone who
| develops land had to keep to a certain split of social
| housing, middle income housing and free market housing.
| They use the land they own and their powers over zoning to
| enforce that.
| luckylion wrote:
| Berlin and other cities sold off their public housing to
| pay for their budget deficits. Generally, there are housing
| cooperatives in Germany, and they have significant amounts
| of apartments. Not close to being as big as the largest
| private companies, but 3000-5000 apartments aren't rare.
| You become a member and buy shares, and their purpose is to
| provide housing to their members, they're very affordable
| and all around pretty great (not as profit-oriented as the
| private companies, not as bureaucratic as the public
| stuff).
|
| I'd prefer those over public housing very much because only
| with them, the interests between the renter and the
| landlord are aligned, and they're not part of the state and
| can therefore not be used (or sold) by political decisions.
| raverbashing wrote:
| The dichotomy between "cheap housing" and luxury housing
| needs to end.
|
| (I might be wrong but) if I had to bet why councils could
| build more places it's that they would have a streamlined
| approval process with councils (denying a social housing
| project would look bad) while the private developers have
| to follow the mood of the deparments and several "appeals"
| and "NIMBYs" (same as in the US today)
|
| But a new "luxury apt" opens a place in a slightly cheaper
| property.
| killtimeatwork wrote:
| At least in Warsaw, there are various kinds of developers.
| Some specialize in luxury housing, while others cater to
| the mass market, with tall building of small-ish flats,
| hundreds of units per flat, built on cheaper land further
| away from the city center. There were entire districts
| built by such developers in the past 20+ years. Perhaps the
| key to this is relatively low regulation in Poland, which
| sadly results in somewhat chaotic urbanism and a lot of
| missed opportunities for building a city that's nice to
| live in, but also allows for shit to get done.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Same thing happens here in Austin, if you don't force them
| to also build affordable housing as part of their deal with
| the city virtually 0 will be build because the profit
| margins are so much more with luxury apartments that are
| 500 sq ft and you can fit a ton of them in a high rise.
| llampx wrote:
| Thatcher has been out of office since decades. If this was
| important to the people they would vote for people who
| promise to bring it back.
|
| Or politicians are corrupt and Thatcher is a good excuse.
| Take your pick.
| mattmanser wrote:
| That's not how politics works in the UK. We have first
| past-the-post, so individual policies mean very little.
|
| On top of that, the Conservatives made an election pledge
| to build 200,000 starter homes in 2015 election and
| apparently failed to build a single one. It's easy to
| claim you'll build houses and then do nothing, like it's
| easy to claim you'll reduce immigration but it just keeps
| going up.
|
| The last election in 2019 was mainly about Brexit and the
| general public's perception that Corbyn was unsuited to
| being the Prime Minister.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I'd take them building more expensive housing (as long as
| it's not used purely as an empty investment vehicle as in
| London) over barely building anything at all. I know people
| who would've paid a bit more for a nicer place but their
| options were too limited, so I'd expect some trickle-
| up/down effect at least.
| kokey wrote:
| There is a point when you run out of people who are
| willing to spend millions on the empty investment
| vehicles so I'm hoping even those properties will help
| with supply when the tide eventually do go out.
| Unfortunately it could take a very long time before this
| happens.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Isn't it widely used for money laundering and wealth
| sheltering? Don't think there's an end to that money.
| llampx wrote:
| There are millions of chinese and other people who want
| safe investment vehicles. If the government does nothing,
| land and housing in a big capital can easily be usurped
| by investors who then take massive tax breaks.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| Investors will profit most by renting out their property.
| Allowing the profit motive to work to increase supply is
| an effective way to reduce the price consumers pay in
| every industry, including the rental market.
|
| Profit is just an emergent form of social compensation
| for addressing a shortage. That society enacts laws to
| prevent the profit motive from working, and incentivizing
| socially beneficial behavior, is a tragedy.
| mattmanser wrote:
| This "trickle-up/down effect" is the exact excuse they've
| been using to justify it.
|
| As far as I know, it's a widely discredited theory, never
| based on any actual studies.
| skohan wrote:
| > A second step would be, to make sure that rental housing is
| used for that instead of AirBNB or any other investment.
|
| This is already in place. Berlin is _very_ strict about
| apartment usage. Once a unit is designated as a living space,
| it 's very difficult to get a permit to use it as an AirB&B.
| Also if you own an apartment, it's illegal to leave it
| without a tenant for an extended period - I think 90 days is
| the maximum.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I think that 90 day limit is great, it would help my city a
| lot because of all the speculative market buyers who buy
| and hold just as a store of wealth hoping to flip it for a
| profit after a few years
| dgellow wrote:
| The amount of unused space is Berlin is just so massive. Even
| in Friedrichstrasse, which is a hype neighborhood with great
| amount of activity, you have hundreds of square meters
| completely unused, with wild plants growing around and random
| waste accumulating.
|
| From what I understand it is very difficult to do something
| with that space, either because people refuse to sell or
| because of bureaucratic red tape.
| yokaze wrote:
| > Even in Friedrichstrasse, which is a hype neighborhood with
| great amount of activity, you have hundreds of square meters
| completely unused, with wild plants growing around and random
| waste accumulating.
|
| Two things: I think you put too much value to
| Friedrichstrasse, and likely Mitte in general. It is the
| physical and historic city centre, but that doesn't have the
| same meaning as it has in other cities.
|
| Second, in many parts in East-Berlin, you have a unclear
| ownership of houses and ground with competing claims. People
| have been disowned by the Nazis, Soviets, or by the GDR. The
| families have gone into diaspora and are partly spread over
| the world. Random people may have moved in and layed their
| own claim.
|
| The ownership is unclear and spread. And it is a battle to
| lay claim to your _part_ of ownership. The ground is gaining
| worth over time. All ingredients, which do not expedite the
| development of land.
| spdionis wrote:
| Wild plants growing around in a city, the horror!
| corty wrote:
| Well, either you build over the growing plants in the city,
| or you raze plants in the outskirts. The former gets
| complaints because people want greenery in the city, the
| latter gets complaints because of sprawl, added traffic and
| unnecessary pollution.
| southerntofu wrote:
| > The amount of unused space is Berlin is just so massive.
|
| What's wrong with that? Enjoy the little green space you have
| left while it lasts. Have a BBQ with friends over there,
| maybe? The gentrifiers/developers won't be so long to remove
| every last bit of green and freedom in your neighborhood, as
| they did everywhere else.
| jdasdf wrote:
| >What's wrong with that?
|
| ...The high housing prices.
| southerntofu wrote:
| High housing prices has to do with treating housing as a
| market and not as a basic human need. Prices are
| correlated to supply and demand, only if you take into
| account that the biggest landlords willingly leave
| apartments/buildings empty to drive up the prices
| (speculation).
| yokaze wrote:
| Okay, then the lack of housing.
| southerntofu wrote:
| If you have statistics, i'm interested, but to my
| knowledge there is no housing shortage in Berlin. If
| anything, there's more housing than ever before, it's
| just trapped in the hands of landlords who want to
| speculate on it.
| yokaze wrote:
| The point is, it wouldn't matter if it is trapped in the
| hands of landlords who want to speculate, if there is
| enough housing to go around, because they couldn't
| determine the market.
|
| It is illegal to keep an apartment empty for more then
| three months. So if you are aware of any empty housing,
| feel free to denounce it (https://www.stadtentwicklung.be
| rlin.de/wohnen/zweckentfremdu...). In 2018, 1,9% of the
| flats in Mitte were subject to an ongoing official
| procedure on those grounds. The owner can simply claim,
| they are reforming, but I presume there are limits to
| that too.
|
| How many flats are really empty is unclear.
|
| I've read that according to the Senat,
|
| - there is an estimated 0.8%-2% of the flats unoccupied
|
| - down from 3.5% in 2011
|
| - ideally, it would be between 2-3%.
|
| The Taz is not particularly strong on keeping opinion
| from facts separated, but that's where I got it from:
| (https://taz.de/Spekulativer-Leerstand-in-
| Berlin/!5749397/)
| ahoka wrote:
| I think you wouldn't enjoy your BBQ in a place like this,
| which is I think the OP refers to:
| https://www.alamy.com/berlin-germany-new-buildings-and-
| indus...
| southerntofu wrote:
| Actually i did quite a few times! I would not recommend
| to live in a place like this due to high industrial
| pollution, but a brownfield is quite nice to have a
| neighborhood BBQ with some music... COVID/police concerns
| aside, of course.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| They are building a massive amount of houses, but they are too
| expensive for the average Berlin citizen.
| jurip wrote:
| I don't know the details of the Berlin situation, but as long
| as _someone_ lives in those new apartments (who would have
| lived in Berlin anyway), it helps with the housing shortage
| and prices. Someone moves to the new, most expensive
| apartment in the city, someone else moves to their now vacant
| slightly less expensive apartment, etc. At some point in the
| chain that means there 's cheaper housing available.
|
| This is a constant discussion in Helsinki, too. I think it's
| better to build expensive if that translates to good
| locations and high quality.
| wsc981 wrote:
| _> Someone moves to the new, most expensive apartment in
| the city, someone else moves to their now vacant slightly
| less expensive apartment, etc. At some point in the chain
| that means there 's cheaper housing available._
|
| In The Netherlands there are actually quite a few people
| that don't want to upgrade from cheaper social rent housing
| to more expensive private rent housing. These people are
| called "scheefwoners", which to a Dutch person's ears make
| it sound like it's _almost_ a criminal activity:
|
| _> Scheefwonen is a term that is used in the Netherlands
| for the living of people in a rental home despite their
| income being too high for that. So the tenants have an
| income that is too high for their type of home, so that
| they actually pay too little rent. With a given housing
| stock, the downside is that there are people who live in a
| rented house whose rent is high in relation to their
| income, which is undesirable for the residents themselves
| and / or socially in connection with the housing
| allowance. It can also play a role that the rent is low
| compared to the characteristics of the home. The Key
| Publication on the Dutch Housing Survey "Living in Unusual
| Times", published in April 2013, showed that the number of
| households in rental homes with a rent below the
| deregulation threshold and an income higher than EUR 33,000
| in 2009 was approximately 790 thousand._
|
| Of course these people might have pretty good reasons why
| they prefer to keep living in cheap social housing. Perhaps
| these people want to save/invest more of their income,
| perhaps they like their neighbourhood or perhaps private
| rent housing is just too expensive. Either way, I feel it's
| wrong to say that these people "pay too little rent based
| on their income". That almost seems to suggest a certain
| percentage of income should be spent on rent or mortgage,
| whether one chooses to or not.
|
| Again, this problem could be easily solved by just building
| more houses, but this is also very difficult to achieve in
| The Netherlands, due to ground speculation by municipal
| governments and a plethora of rules that a builder has to
| conform to when building new houses. This, combined with an
| average immigration of around 400-500 migrants a week means
| that for the next 15 years or so I don't believe this
| problem will be fixed, maybe not even in 30 years, unless
| some major policy changes are introduced. This situation is
| good for rent-seekers though, they will be able to ask a
| premium for a very long time.
|
| Source: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&
| u=https:/...
| phaer wrote:
| That's true, but your premises are wrong for most of the
| luxury real estate market in European cities (and likely
| elsewhere). Most buyers are investors in one way or another
| and for them it's good enough if they believe that prices
| will continue to rise.
| jurip wrote:
| But does it matter who owns the place as long as someone
| lives there? I mean I assume that the investors are
| renting them out. If not, surely they're losing out on a
| very nice income stream, and it's hard to believe it's
| all that popular. There are probably some empty
| apartments -- that's a requirement for a working housing
| market, given that people need empty places to move into
| -- but the proportion of empty investment vehicles in a
| city as large as Berlin can't be that large.
| yokaze wrote:
| From what I've heard, the problem here is a bit with
| expectations.
|
| Institutional investors have higher expectations of
| return of investment and are more likely willing to
| forego a small rent in the hope for a larger future rent.
| They have more deep pockets. And on top of that,
| expectations from an international market, which Berlin
| did not match. Investors are expecting that to change in
| the long run. And the funny thing, with a limited supply
| in housing and an increase of investors with such a
| behaviour, it is a self-fulfilling promise.
|
| The number of empty apartments in Berlin is hard to
| guess. Not an expert in that matter, but from a quick
| search, the number is anywhere between 0.8% and 2%.
|
| Yes, it is important to have apartments empty for some
| time, so people can actually move, but as I understand,
| that is excluded from those considerations/statistics. We
| are looking at apartments which are empty for more than
| three months (which is theoretically illegal in Berlin).
| jurip wrote:
| Ah, all right. A significant stock of empty apartments
| would certainly be suboptimal in a city like Berlin. I'm
| not a big fan of bans on things that don't cause direct
| harm to people, but I don't see any reason to not heavily
| tax apartments that are kept empty.
| yokaze wrote:
| Sparked from the the post, I read a bit up on it, and
| actually 0.8%-2% is actually on the lower side. 2-3% is
| supposedly the right amount for a well functioning market
| according to a local government source.
|
| Keep in mind, what I wrote about investors is what I
| heard from people living there complaining about. So more
| a reflection of the emotions there, then necessarily
| factual.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > but as long as someone lives in those new apartments (who
| would have lived in Berlin anyway), it helps with the
| housing shortage and prices.
|
| > At some point in the chain that means there's cheaper
| housing available.
|
| Not at all: if you tear down a cheap apartment and replace
| it with a more expensive one the overall availability of
| cheap apartments decreases.
| wolfpack_mick wrote:
| In Helsinki I'm wondering if building expensive buildings
| will make sure the 'bubble' won't break. Banks will just
| give people larger loans. Move to a situation like Sweden
| where you don't even intend to fully pay it back anymore.
| You're just renting from the bank instead of a landlord.
| llampx wrote:
| Same in Switzerland. The taxation laws and low interest
| rates lead to a perverse incentive where people get
| million CHF apartments that they never pay off because if
| they do pay it off their real tax rate would go up
| tremendously. So they just make interest payments on the
| debt.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Who would do that? The same people with an incentive to
| restrict supply? Call me cynical but that's how it works
| elsewhere.
| SiNTEx wrote:
| In Prague we have a comparable housing problem to Berlin but
| all the politicians tend to balme AirBnB and real estate
| investors and they all focus on some kind of market regulation.
| Mostly just talking about it because they know any strict
| regulation would be unconstitutional. From the technical
| perspective the solution is simple. We should just build more
| houses in big projects like we did 40 years ago which will
| drive down the unit price and also provide all the necessary
| infrastructure like public transport and schools. Pretty big
| portion (tens of percent) of Prague's housing capacity was
| build during the 40 years communist era. If we could
| successfully build huge housing projects like Jizni Mesto
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji%C5%BEn%C3%AD_M%C4%9Bsto)
| during this awful regime whit very limited economic resources
| then it's surely doable now and in much higher standard. We
| just lack the political will to think longer then next 4 years
| till the next elections and to solve the problems instead of
| just talking about it and blaming someone else.
| lqet wrote:
| > Why not make it a multistory building with apartments on top
| of the supermarket and skip the parking space or put it
| underground?
|
| That's exactly what they are doing at a few places in my city
| (also with a _massive_ housing problem).
|
| We recently found a new apartment here, the process was as
| follows:
|
| (1) We found the apartment online. It was online for exactly 6
| hours, listed by an estate agent.
|
| (2) Inside the listing (hidden deep in the description) was a
| short sentence saying that any contact made through the listing
| website contact form would be ignored and that a secret mail
| address had to be used. You had to email an application letter
| (preferably with photos), copies of your latest 3 salary
| statements, copies of your identity card, proof of your credit-
| worthiness ("Schufa-Auskunft" in Germany), proof that you had
| liability insurance, and contact information of previous
| landlords. This had to be mailed until a deadline the next
| morning. If any of this was missing, the application would be
| ignored.
|
| (3) A week later, we received an email telling us that we were
| eligible for an appointment to visit the apartment. But we had
| to confirm this until the same evening by sending an SMS to a
| secret number.
|
| (4) A few days later, we indeed got a date and time for
| visiting the apartment (via SMS). It was a 15-minute slot, but
| there were at least 10 other families there, and they did
| visits the entire day. When the agent asked us, we indicated
| strong interest, told him we could rent the place _beginning
| tomorrow_ and left.
|
| (5) A week later, we got the apartment (of course we now have
| to pay 2 rents for 3 months). When we asked him why the process
| was so complicated, he told us that they were only 4 people in
| the agency, and they didn't have the capacity to read (not
| answer!) > 1000 mails of people interested in the apartment. So
| they gradually came up with various hoops and obstacles to get
| this number down to something manageable (they got it down to
| around 50 families who indicated final interest).
| killtimeatwork wrote:
| I'm always baffled by stories like this. If there's indeed so
| much interest in an apartment, why not increase the price to
| the point where 90% of contenders lose interest? The owner
| must have been in a huge hurry, or doesn't care about money?
| lqet wrote:
| > why not increase the price to the point where 90% of
| contenders lose interest
|
| Because that's illegal, even without the rent cap in
| Berlin.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| A market response to supply and demand is illegal? What
| law would do that if not a rent cap?
| chillyistkult wrote:
| SS 291 StGB Wucher
| djbebs wrote:
| Rent control prevents from increasing by more than a set
| amount every year. Theoretically you can wait for decades
| raising the rent every year
| cmoser wrote:
| There are multiple kinds of rent caps. One is the maximum
| annual raise for existing tenants.
|
| Another one is vague and based on the "Mietspiegel",
| which lists appropriate rents according to quality and
| location.
|
| If the rent exceeds this by too much, you can sue for
| "Mietwucher" (rent usury).
| lqet wrote:
| SS556d, 1 of the German civil code.
|
| https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__556d.html
|
| It's illegal here to demand a rent more than 10% higher
| than the "ortsubliche Vergleichsmiete", which is
| approximately the local rent averaged over the last 6
| years (exactly defined in SS558)
|
| More generally, you cannot simply ask for astronomical
| prices for _anything_ in Germany just because you know
| that people are in a position where they _have_ to pay
| them, that 's "Wucher" (racketeering) and against public
| decency, which is generally illegal according to SS138.
|
| https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__138.html
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| Interesting. That sounds a lot like rent control if the
| wiggle room is only 10% over a 6 year moving average.
| acjacobson wrote:
| It is rent control - which basically exists throughout
| Germany. Even in SF rent controlled apartments can
| increase some % per year, it is just controlled how much.
| In Germany this is often done by looking at the region's
| average price for similar properties and then fixing some
| limited increase against that. This is distinct from the
| rent cap that was overturned, which stated no rise in
| rent at all for five years.
| campl3r wrote:
| because, sadly that's illegal in all of germany.
| 0xfaded wrote:
| Equally, why not build more housing until there is a 4%
| vacancy rate? This seems to have worked wonders in SF.
| corty wrote:
| NIMBYism, environmental regulations, building codes and
| lack of money and interest by the state.
|
| Berlin had the nice example of a few square kilometers of
| the Tempelhof airport field being available. Public
| demanded to make it a park instead of constructing
| housing.
|
| Almost anything with a tree on it is impossible to build
| on, and even if there is a building permit for the
| housing, attaching it to public transports like the
| S-Bahn or Subway is next to impossible nowadays.
|
| Building codes in Berlin are not much weirder than in the
| rest of Germany, but they also serve to make constructing
| housing harder. E.g. there is a strict limit to building
| height, which limits buildings to 5 storeys (iirc) even
| in high-demand high-density areas.
|
| Money is especially tight for the state of Berlin, while
| they get subsidized with lots of money from the other
| states (Landerfinanzausgleich), they still cannot afford
| to construct much of the necessary housing or the
| associated infrastructure themselves. Private investment
| usually will go elsewhere because the political
| environment in Berlin is poor. If there is rent control
| in Berlin and no rent control in Hamburg, of course money
| will go to Hamburg first.
|
| There is also no political will to fix the above.
| e_proxus wrote:
| No experience with the building codes in Berlin, but a
| least the N story limit makes sense to me. It would
| totally destroy the look and feel of many parts of the
| city of this wasn't in place.
|
| What I think is a bigger problem is the countless vacant
| lots all over the city. Even centrally there are tons of
| them, e.g. with only a one story supermarket or parking
| lots (as mentioned above) or sometimes it's just
| overgrown. I wonder what the deal are with those. My
| guess is that the city already sold them in more dire
| times and now owners just sit on them until the real
| estate prices makes the time ripe to build something
| there. Can't find another explanation for it.
| corty wrote:
| Berlin has a lot of real-estate with unclear ownership,
| due to seizure of property during the nazi time and
| communism, sometimes multiple times. Add a few levels of
| inheritance and you get real estate that is unusable
| because it belongs to a lot of people at once, all in a
| decade long court battle with each other.
| feuermurmel wrote:
| In many places, a landlord can't just decide to raise the
| rent. When I signed the contract for my current apartment,
| the landlord needed me to sign an official form they had to
| send to the city. The form informed me of the rent the
| previous occupant paid and stated the applicable laws that
| regulated by how much the rent could be raised (based on
| inflation, changes in interest rates etc.). What I don't
| know, but assume, is that it's easy to fight for the rent
| to be lowered to the legal limits even after accepting
| signing a contract with rent above the legal limits.
| pitkali wrote:
| I think I prefer the Swedish queues.
| llampx wrote:
| Those are great if you can wait years
| e_proxus wrote:
| Last I looked in Gothenburg those seem a joke. Only about
| 50 apartments in the whole city and an average queue time
| of 10 years or so.
| cbqfund wrote:
| And (2) means that privacy oriented persons no longer can get
| an apartment in Germany.
|
| BTW, 10% of these data collecting advertisements on the real
| estate websites are from identity thieves.
| durnygbur wrote:
| I cannot wait for a massive data leak containg apartment
| application documents, especially from high demand
| locations like Munich or Berlin. People simply send it all
| over the place and they contain _everything_. It would
| knacker out many people in various ways.
| corty wrote:
| Actually what they are doing and asking for is illegal.
| Asking for credit scores, proof of employment and sensitive
| stuff like that is only legal when an offer to rent is
| actually being made to that candidate. Just having
| everybody send in everything is common, but should never
| happen. However, privacy watchdogs are somewhat toothless
| and future renters put up with it because they have no
| other choice.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > ... just build more housing instead.
|
| Exactly. And the Mietendeckel caused new construction to
| essentially stop completely. Way to go!
| mschuster91 wrote:
| This is utterly wrong. https://taz.de/Mehr-Baugenehmigungen-
| in-Berlin/!5706294/
| mpweiher wrote:
| Nope. Your article was for the first half of 2020. For the
| whole year of 2020, the numbers were down again, fourth
| year running.
|
| "16.03.2021: Heute hat das Amt fur Statistik Berlin-
| Brandenburg die Baugenehmigungszahlen fur das Jahr 2020
| veroffentlicht. Die Zahl der Baugenehmigungen sank in
| Berlin das vierte Jahr in Folge."
|
| https://www.immobilien-aktuell-
| magazin.de/topics/auswirkunge...
|
| https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2020/11/berlin-
| mietende...
|
| And the effects already started in 2019, when the law was
| planned:
|
| https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-11/berlin-
| mietendeckel-g...
| yladiz wrote:
| If it's been happening for four years, how did the
| Mietendeckel cause it?
| mpweiher wrote:
| In 2015, a similar but less draconian "Mietpreisbremse"
| was enacted at the federal level. 2016 was the year the
| construction trend turned from yearly increases to
| declines, and it has been declining consistently ever
| since.
|
| In 2019, in anticipation of the Mietendeckel, the decline
| became significantly steeper.
|
| Several large companies announced that they were halting
| all new construction and renovation projects.
|
| At the same time, inventory has practically disappeared.
| So instead of "unaffordable" housing[1] for new tenants,
| we now have _no_ housing for new tenants. (Existing rents
| were already protected).
|
| [1] Berlin is still cheap compared other large German
| cities and certainly compared to most capital cities of
| industrialised countries or places like SF. It's just not
| quite as ridiculously cheap any longer.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| But they won't. What does that tell you about the politicians
| promoting this rent control policy?
| llampx wrote:
| That all they care about is getting reelected by people who
| live there and want free stuff, rather than solving real,
| hard problems?
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Berlin has enough space and I guess the pressure on properties
| outside the ring (e.g. Marzahn/Marienfeld) is less. However if
| everyone wants to move to Mitte/kreuzolln, then this creates
| lots of competition.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Why build more? There's plenty of abandoned/empty housing
| everywhere in big cities? Unfortunately i don't speak german so
| i can't give you stats about Berlin, but in Paris alone it's
| >200 000 empty housing units according to official statistics.
|
| Building more is definitely the wrong solution to housing. Just
| remove the capitalist vampire landlords making a profit on
| basic human needs, and let everybody enjoy free housing for
| life!
|
| EDIT: Corrected stat.
|
| EDIT2: Funny to see people downvoting without argument. Are you
| all against Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human
| Rights, stating "Everyone has the right to a standard of living
| adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his
| family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and
| necessary social services" ?
| Asdrubalini wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
| gjulianm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Idealizin
| g...
|
| People can't live without housing so demand is not elastic.
| Plus the housing market is special regarding spatial
| location. Applying regular market rules as if the housing
| market behaved the same as, say, the screwdrivers market,
| does not make sense at all.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| In 99% cases it's the government/zoning rules that
| prevent increasing the supply of housing not private
| investors not wanting to build enough.
| gjulianm wrote:
| And in many cases it's private investors buying houses
| for speculation (either by increasing rent or by using
| them for AirBnBs) the ones that drive prices up, not an
| increase of supply.
|
| In any case, my point is that applying market rules to
| housing does not make sense, it's not a competitive
| market at all and never can be.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Absolutely not. Investors fight with tooth and nails to
| keep the prices up because it's more profitable than
| building.
| southerntofu wrote:
| That's just pro-landlord propaganda but i've never seen
| actual evidence of that. I have seen evidence though that
| landlords and public powers conspire against the
| population to gentrify neighborhoods and drive prices up,
| leaving tons of apartments empty so they can make more
| money speculating.
| vetinari wrote:
| It is more nuanced; the private investors want to make
| profit as quick as possible, they do not care about long
| term development of the area (many politicians either,
| they might not be in their position after next election).
|
| The private investors won't do infrastructure either - it
| is expensive - so they want to build where the
| infrastructure is already in place. So that's why we see
| trying to increase density.
|
| So the zoning rules are there as a conterweight to this.
| pharmakom wrote:
| How is it that rents are so high and yet there are empty
| housing units? Don't landlords want the money?
| gjulianm wrote:
| They might think it's more profitable to wait so that they
| can sell or rent the unit later at a higher price.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Why collect rent when the property price keeps increasing
| regardless? Saves you from having to deal with the tenants
| and saves you tons of worries/busywork like:
|
| - How tedious will it be to find suitable tenants (do you
| want to go through 1000 emails)?
|
| - Will they make a mess of the place?
|
| - Will they call you at random times to complain about
| neighbors?
|
| - Will you have to organize and deal with mechanics when
| e.g. the heating breaks?
|
| And so on. If property prices go up x% per year, buying
| housing is a great investment even if you leave it empty.
| And yes, this is a serious problem in larger cities, where
| investors (domestic or even foreign) just buy up housing
| without any intention to let people live there,
| exacerbating the problem.
|
| To be clear, I am just a tenant, but the above incentives
| for investors are straightforward to see.
| pharmakom wrote:
| > Why collect rent when the property price keeps
| increasing regardless?
|
| Because then you get the property price gains and the
| rental income on top!
|
| I don't doubt this is happening, I'm just trying to wrap
| my head around it.
| southerntofu wrote:
| As an individual person with a heart, it's hard to wrap
| one's head around. But the problem is landowners are
| usually very rich and soulless, when not actual
| corporations who have nothing human at all. To them, an
| empty apartment is just a line in a spreadsheet that will
| bring them money sooner or later. Renting the apartments
| would be more trouble for them, despite bringing in a
| little more money.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Seems like a market opportunity. Take on the rental risk
| and management costs for some fraction of the rent
| payments. Insurance can be used to hedge against damages.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Many companies are doing that already, and it's not
| working as a strategy for housing people (despite making
| some people very rich). The problem is that housing is a
| market to begin with. Basic commodities like housing
| shouldn't be subject to speculation and other capitalist
| nonsense.
| [deleted]
| southerntofu wrote:
| > How is it that rents are so high and yet there are empty
| housing units?
|
| Rents are so high BECAUSE there are empty housing units. If
| all available housing units went on the market, rent prices
| would collapse along with the real-estate speculative
| bubble, which is precisely what landlords are trying to
| avoid.
| artwr wrote:
| Just curious, would you happen to have a reference for Paris
| handy?
| southerntofu wrote:
| You can find an article on paris.fr website claiming 17%
| empty housing in Paris (and rising) in 2019 :
| https://www.paris.fr/pages/le-saviez-vous-17-des-
| logements-p...
|
| So my bad for giving a wrong number the >1 million is in
| fact 3 millions for the whole of France (~8%). For Paris
| it's "only" ~240000 (according to 2019 paris.fr numbers)
| which is on the scale of one empty apartment in the heart
| of Paris for every mishoused person ("sans domicile fixe")
| in the whole of France, according to official statistics
| (which may be too optimistic on the number of mishoused
| people).
|
| https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3572856
|
| According to INSEE (official statistics), between 1990 and
| 2015, population has grown 0.4%, housing units have grown
| 1%, while abandoned housing units grew 2.8%. Now may be a
| good time to say that secondary housing (vacation houses
| for the privileged elite that can afford it) is NOT
| abandoned housing according to these stats.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| That's already happening with two Edeka markets in my
| neighbourhood, they teared down the old markets, and replace(d)
| them with new buildings with the market on the bottom floor,
| and flats on top. Drop in the bucket though I think.
|
| I don't think the city is giving out _new_ building permits for
| this type of stuff, and many of those markets have either been
| there "forever", or have been built after the reunification
| (and in the 90's city planners were expecting that the city
| would shrink further, not grow).
| llampx wrote:
| You hit on the major problem. That it's hard to build in the
| city. So many ugly buildings under Denkmalschutz, so many
| empty concrete spaces and people still want to live where the
| facilities are, not in the outskirts if they have the choice.
| yftsui wrote:
| Because the road and other related infrastructure may not be
| ready for the increased FAR ratio yet?
| adrianN wrote:
| The supermarket in question has a bus stop right in front of
| it and is in walking distance from a train station and an
| underground station. The city center is a 15 minute bike ride
| away. It's not a neighborhood where you need a car.
| llampx wrote:
| Sounds a bit like concern trolling if this is used to stop or
| delay building new apartments that people would love to move
| into.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Compared to other capitals in Europe, they are doing it. It's
| of course a slow process, but it exists.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I wish Berlin would just build more housing instead.
|
| The problem is: Berlin _can 't_. There is not much free space
| for new construction in Berlin proper, with the exception of
| "Nachverdichtung" such as you propose with apartments over
| parking lots - and these have the downside that they are
| horribly expensive, simply because it costs potential
| developers a lot of money to acquire the land!
|
| The solution would be to build out internet connectivity and
| public transport in the suburbs in Brandenburg so that
| employers don't all concentrate in Berlin.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Has Berlin built over all its brownfields? If so, very
| commendable.
|
| Here in Prague we have quite a few brownfields that could be
| home to at least 50 thousand people (Rohansky ostrov, Bubny,
| Kolbenova), but the development is extremely slow.
| southerntofu wrote:
| > Has Berlin built over all its brownfields? If so, very
| commendable.
|
| Well having some undeveloped space is actually quite nice
| to enjoy in a city. We don't have to live packed narrowly
| on top of one another.
|
| But more specifically, brownfields (previously-industrial
| spaces) are usually highly polluted. Some are full of heavy
| metals and chemicals that you really don't want to displace
| into the air by digging into the soil... Some people are
| doing it, but it either costs billions of euros in
| depollution, or greatly affects the health of nearby
| population, and often both.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Where I was born (Ostrava, a heavy industry city), there
| was a giant, massively polluted brownfield right next to
| the city centre.
|
| It required several years of sanation works to clean up,
| but now it is built over and serves the needs of the
| population. [0]
|
| I believe that this is a reasonable use of public money,
| even though private developers profit from it. Or
| possibly finance it through a Public-Private Partnership
| project.
|
| The alternative is to let poisoned land within borders of
| a big city stay poisoned forever. Which does not sound
| either people- or environment-friendly.
|
| [0] https://www.ostrava.cz/en/podnikatel-investor/real-
| estate/br...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| What about Tempelhofer Feld? What about all the
| Kleingartenkolonien inside and by the Ring?
| adrianN wrote:
| Please no suburban sprawl while Berlin still has such low
| density compared to other cities. There are still lots of
| fairly central areas with single family homes. Just upzone
| them and let people get rich selling their land to
| developers.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Please no suburban sprawl while Berlin still has such low
| density compared to other cities
|
| A city should be worth it to live in and provide enjoyment
| for the citizens, not be a glorified chicken coop for
| people.
| adrianN wrote:
| That is EXACTLY what you get by building dense housing.
| You leave room for the important things that a city
| offers: services, events, jobs, greenery all in walkable
| or bikeable distance.
|
| Otoh sprawl development leads to dead neighborhoods, car
| dependence and long commutes. It also uses space that
| could be left to nature instead.
| oytis wrote:
| Have you been to Berlin? We have amazing public
| transportation network, I never had a car living here for
| 5 years already, and never felt I need one (at least not
| before the pandemic). And also coming from a country with
| dense housing (Russia), I really appreciate we are not
| sitting on each others heads here.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| "Dense housing" is code for "chicken coops" with the only
| space people have for themselves being 40 m2 for a family
| of four. Seriously, thanks but no thanks.
|
| There is a middle way between US-level sprawl and Japan-
| style chicken coops - and I definitely hope we don't go
| the Japan route.
| adrianN wrote:
| No, "dense housing" is code for multistory buildings in a
| mixed-use neighborhood (like you already find in many
| parts of the city!). It doesn't matter very much whether
| those apartments are 30 or 200m^2, the density is several
| times better than in a neighborhood of single family
| homes as you find them just a few km outside of Berlin's
| city center.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Japan style housing, just like British, is "dense" in the
| sense of buildings being physically close. It's not what
| the post is about - it's about building buildings with
| higher number of storeys.
| Slippery_John wrote:
| There's plenty of space. I've walked by countless empty lots
| and abandoned buildings that could easily fit dozens or
| hundreds of new apartments. I'm sure there's plenty of
| ridiculous legal challenges to actually building on those
| spots, but that doesn't mean that there's no land available.
| oleganza wrote:
| My impression of Berlin (living there for the last 2 years) is
| that there's plenty of space, plenty of new housing already
| built and plenty of new construction still going. SF, NY, Paris
| and London are way more crowded and under-housed in comparison.
| Shitty one-story supermarkets are really just a sign of
| abundance of space and not enough demand (yet). Among big
| European cities the rent seems low. You can buy an super-duper-
| lux apartment for ~$1M in the very center of the city that in
| the next 10 years can easily go for $5M if Berlin is to
| continue to grow the way it does.
| frereubu wrote:
| Surely a rent cap is a clear sign that there _is_ demand
| though?
| oleganza wrote:
| I think the discussion of the rent cap is more complex. In
| every city there's some distribution of wealth and there
| are plenty of people who are sensitive to rent. Then, gov
| orders businesses to shut down, a lot of people lose money,
| then gov starts playing games with various ways to buy love
| of voters, rent cap is one of those things.
|
| Similarly, minimum wage is typically bumped after inflation
| already made its way, so most of the people are over the
| threshold anyway and won't be thrown out of their jobs. And
| those who will -- are valuable voters who can be made
| highly dependent on state unemployment programs.
| southerntofu wrote:
| A rent cap is a clear sign that the capitalist system is
| broken and we need a better system to match the housing
| needs and supply without feeding into heartless vampires
| who'd rather have empty apartments than rent them at a
| reasonable price.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Quite the opposite actually.Increase capitalism and
| reduce government control and you get more housing.
| crumbshot wrote:
| That's not how it turned out in the UK. As this graph
| illustrates, when the local government authorities were
| prohibited from building more housing, from the 1980s
| onwards, the private sector didn't pick up any of the
| slack: https://i.stack.imgur.com/MmJ5N.png
|
| The capitalists instead decided to optimize for steadily
| increasing the price of housing by restricting supply, so
| these are now primarily seen as an investment with
| nearly-guaranteed returns, rather than places for people
| to live.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Another piece of data, from the Netherlands, where office
| space vacancy has significantly increased since making
| squatting illegal back in 2010:
| https://en.squat.net/2016/05/27/netherlands-housing-
| crisis/
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| > an investment with nearly-guaranteed returns, rather
| than places for people to live.
|
| Or "magic coin-shitting machines", as Charlie Brooker so
| pithily put it.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Yes, as we can see from the very great examples of where
| this approach worked perfectly. Now every one is
| perfectly housed in decent conditions and for cheap in
| United States or South Korea. We all know the dozens of
| thousands of homeless folks in San Francisco and around
| really want to live in slums or on the streets, and their
| situation has nothing to do with speculation,
| gentrification and AirBNB. /s
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Are you South Korean? What do you know about South
| Korea's real estate?
|
| Either way I would say housing in Japan (considering all
| the constraints) seems to work great.
| southerntofu wrote:
| > Are you South Korean? What do you know about South
| Korea's real estate?
|
| No. Very little. Just read articles over the years saying
| they are facing similar issues of real-estate bubble and
| speculation and that prices in Seoul are getting close to
| those of New York.
| llampx wrote:
| And what does that have to do with the price of tea in
| China?
| llampx wrote:
| Berlin needs much more new housing. I keep an eye on the
| market both for buying and for renting , and the prices for
| buying have exploded upwards at the same time as the number
| of flats for rent has steeply declined.
|
| Empty ugly spaces (not Parks or Public squares) are a symptom
| of a lethargic bureaucracy, not a healthy thing.
| corty wrote:
| Berlin is also full of empty spaces for historical reasons.
| Previous rulers intentionally built some things big and far
| apart for their capital, WW2 left even more unused spaces
| after the rubble was cleared and during the cold war only
| some parts got rebuilt. So even compared to most smaller
| German cities, Berlin has a low density overall.
| dbspin wrote:
| Not enough demand for high priced apartments != not enough
| demand for affordable accommodation. In fact, they're
| literally in opposition.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| It seems like covid will solve the Berlin housing problem. My
| building in Schillerkiez is slowly emptying out.
| andreiursan wrote:
| Any specific reason why is emptying out?
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Can't enjoy the cultural offerings of the city if
| everything is closed and banned.
| corty wrote:
| How does that work, I don't suppose residents are dying away?
| Does unemployment force them to move out?
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Move to the countryside probably. Others move back home.
| The one person I spoke to was moving his family to a house
| for more green space
| daptaq wrote:
| Will this affect people who have started living in Berlin under
| the rent cap-system? I hope they won't have to move out all of a
| sudden, facing sudden, higher rents.
| danielatc wrote:
| It's worse. Many (most?) Landlords already established so
| called shadow rents months or years ago in case the rent cap
| wasn't legal. This allows them to _retroactively_ collect the
| difference of the past rents. So a lot of tenants will now have
| to pay massive sums to their landlords.
| avh02 wrote:
| most contracts drawn up during the "the law is being
| challenged" period have a "shadow rent" where you agree to pay
| the difference to what the rent is without the cap.
|
| I.e: "it's x euros _now_, but if/when it's repealed, you'll pay
| y euros, and the difference between the two"
| rndgermandude wrote:
| It will affect them.
|
| The court overturning the cap means that renters will have to
| pay whatever they agreed to in their rental contracts, even if
| much higher than what they had to pay when the cap was active.
| Even worse, the landlords may request you pay back the
| difference you "saved" between the time the cap came into
| effect and now.
|
| If you entered a new renting agreement post cap, the landlord
| might have kind of written the cap into the terms as "shadow
| rents" [other commenters mentioned]. Read your contract very
| carefully. But even if you're good there, the landlord may try
| to have the contract invalidated by a court (probably not going
| to happen), or legally cancel the contract (after the normal
| notification period required by law) and offer to make a new
| contract with higher prices.
| nicbou wrote:
| This is correct, but only if your rent contract included a
| higher "shadow rent".
|
| I am very fortunate to have a rent contract that included
| lower rent frozen for 5 years, but without any conditions. In
| my case, I get to keep my cheap rent.
|
| If your rent is about to go up, don't forget that the
| Mietpreisbremse is still in effect. You can still get your
| rent reduced this way, either alone, with a tenants' union,
| with Wenigermiete, or with a regular lawyer.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Important to note here is that while the Mietendeckel (rent cap)
| has been overturned, the Mietpreisebremse (rental price control)
| is still active. This is a very interesting development though.
| nicbou wrote:
| Correct. Unfortunately, the Mietpreisbremse is not as
| "automatic", because there is no fine tied to it. This means
| the landlord will not reduce your rent unless you do something
| about it. It also brings a lower reduction than the
| Mietendeckel.
|
| Unfortunately, many rent contracts had a "shadow rent" clause -
| a higher rent they'd have to pay retroactively if the
| Mietpreisbremse was repealed. A lot of people are about to get
| a really big invoice they have to pay within 2 weeks.
|
| Fortunately, the Mietpreisbremse is retroactive back to April
| 2020, so you can start the process now and get a refund later.
|
| Your action plan should be the following:
|
| 1. Use a Mietpreisbremse calculator to check how much you are
| paying
|
| 2. Contact your landlord, either alone or with the help of a
| tenants' union (Mieterverein)
|
| 3. If that fails, use a lawyer, or a service like Wenigermiete.
| If it get this far, the resolution will generally take around a
| year. This is the average resolution time.
|
| I have worked directly with Wenigermiete. They explained the
| situation to me just last week, but they expected the court to
| resolve the case in July, perhaps even later.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Thanks for putting it nicely. This sums it really well.
| nicbou wrote:
| I will write a longer practical guide for Berliners
| affected by this. It should go live today or tomorrow on
| allaboutberlin.com.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Ah thanks, that site is a goldmine of info for Expats in
| Berlin
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| Mietpreisbremse for Berlin wasn't renewed, so there is now no
| upper limit on Miete except the federal 20% every 3 years. (I
| think)
| durnygbur wrote:
| Housing situation in Germany for anyone born after 1980 is so
| fucked.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes. Since we have two levels of living costs, we should have
| two numbers of inflation! :)
|
| This makes me wonder: is inflation calculated based on averages
| or based on medians?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Depends where you live, I guess. Gentrification is a problem,
| so, I agree.
| durnygbur wrote:
| It doesn't matter where you live. The jobs are in Munich,
| Berlin, Wolfsburg, etc.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And a job in these cities usually pays the rent. Unless, of
| course, you work blue collar at smaller companies. Or are a
| long time resident. Then it sucks.
|
| That being said, I'd say the situation sucks _especially_
| for older folks not owning their apartments. The generally
| higher educated post 1980 generation has it comparatively
| good.
|
| I just take issue with such general blatant statements,
| things are never that simple.
| nicbou wrote:
| It's the jobs that support the locals that don't pay
| enough. While the skilled workers might be able to afford
| the local rent, other residents progressively get pushed
| out.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. Being one of the skilled workers, I
| hate that development. That's why I also think the rent
| cap being overturned is a bad idea.
| kuu wrote:
| Housing situation in Germany is so fucked
|
| Housing situation in London is so fucked
|
| Housing situation in Spain is so fucked
|
| Housing situation in Canada is so fucked
|
| ....
|
| I'm not an expert, but I see a pattern there...
| stareatgoats wrote:
| Sweden too. Not an expert either, but isn't the privatization
| of housing all over the industrialized world at the root of
| this, coupled with the currently ubiquitous need to crowd
| together in the cities? People have been able to buy
| properties in the city centers at fantasy prices, because of
| low interests and favorable mortgage arrangements and with
| the expectation that the prices will go on rising forever.
|
| Which - spoiler ahead - they won't. Cities will within a
| decade or two have lost their luminosity, with the giant
| shift towards remote work that is about to take place, in
| parallel with the wiping out of brick-and-mortar businesses.
| Prices will reflect this, sooner or later.
| amelius wrote:
| > Which - spoiler ahead - they won't. Cities will within a
| decade or two have lost their luminosity, with the giant
| shift towards remote work that is about to take place, in
| parallel with the wiping out of brick-and-mortar
| businesses. Prices will reflect this, sooner or later.
|
| That's the question as those in power wouldn't want to
| suffer the consequences.
| mjevans wrote:
| Add the USA to that list.
|
| Housing needs to not be an investment.
| avh02 wrote:
| I used to live in Dubai - i got there at almost peak
| rent/real estate... I look at rents now, and they're just
| under half what i was paying. Sometimes tides turn the other
| way too.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| The way I understand it, investment is pouring into real-
| estate in countries thought to be long-term stable, mostly
| by investors in less-stable countries. The UAE has a lot
| going for it, but geopolitical stability isn't one of them.
| romanovcode wrote:
| Yeah but who wants to live in Dubai anyway. The only reason
| to be there is to not pay income tax.
| durnygbur wrote:
| I would prefer location where my chance to find female mate
| is greater than 0, and where I will not be on the hook for
| saying, writing, or doing something trivial and then
| persecuted under pretext of consuming alcohol.
| avh02 wrote:
| That's a completely different story - and there are
| obviously many reasons I left Dubai.
|
| But Dubai is not _entirely_ that repressed (believe it or
| not, you may date someone. (but technically, no sex
| outside marriage - didn't know anyone caught on that one
| though)). There were many caveats and "watch outs" for
| sure - the _general_ rule was "don't be a stupid drunk",
| "don't publicly insult anyone", "no overt PDA in public"
| and you were fine. Obviously that's not to everyone's
| taste and wasn't always uniformly applied.
| patrickk wrote:
| The whole Anglosphere seems to have issues with housing, in
| addition to those places you mention. It seems to be a common
| cultural issue where people gamble on property like crazy.
| I'm from Ireland, and this is true there (in the desirable
| urban areas where semi-decent jobs exist), it's true in the
| UK[1], it's true in the US, Canada, Australia and New
| Zealand.
|
| New Zealand banned foreigners from buying property[2].
|
| Among Brits, there's a (small) trend of retirees going off
| and buying a French Chateau and doing it up, because the cost
| of doing so will be the same or cheaper than buying a very
| modest place in many urban areas in the UK. This is spurred
| on by a popular TV show[3]
|
| I'm not sure what the answer is. More construction, rent
| controls and banning foreigners from owning property, none of
| it seems to really fix the problem. Construction is often too
| slow, rent controls can put in place conditions for landlords
| neglecting properties, and banning foreigners will bring
| other problems too.
|
| [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/lvx0xg/
| pro...
|
| [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/new-zealand-bans-most-
| foreig...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau
| corty wrote:
| All the western countries go through urbanisation, and have
| been for the last few decades. Back in the days, industry
| would build a factory in a smaller country town with a few
| thousand inhabitants and employ half the population there.
| Nowadays, this rarely happens anymore, only big cities get
| any industrial development of larger scales. All the
| office-based parts of the economy also gravitate towards
| larger cities (often unnecessarily).
|
| So demand for big-city-housing is rising permanently. This
| wasn't as much of a problem in the last decades. But then,
| central banks flooded the market with cheap money, making
| most "safe" investments unviable. Therefore the only "safe"
| investment left is real-estate which also drives up prices
| in addition to the increase in demand.
|
| And here we are.
|
| How do we fix it? Get central banks to stop printing cheap
| money. No idea how that will work out, because it also has
| other consequences beside the housing market. And stop
| urbanisation, make the countryside more viable for
| industry, commerce, office space. Improve transport around
| the countryside and suburbs. Curb speculation by promoting
| home-ownership (for the home you live in, not the 20 you
| rent out) through tax incentives and other measures
| (currently, in Germany, you pay lower taxes when renting
| out a property than when living in the same property,
| because when renting it out the mortgage payments are
| "business expenses").
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| This has to change, with the diminishing birth rates.
| Growth will stop then reverse. Housing maybe become an
| issue of dealing with empty buildings and abandoned
| neighborhoods.
| patrickk wrote:
| Even with declining birth rates, there is still the
| global urbanisation trend, and the best paid jobs in
| knowledge sectors tend to cluster together. So while
| rural areas, and even entire countries (like some of the
| former USSR states) are emptying out, the cities where
| the best jobs are will keep rising in importance, and
| presumably, rental costs unless something drastic
| changes.
| unixhero wrote:
| Yup, same in my country. I was able to buy a home recently, but
| my method of accumulating capital enough is just about mission
| impossible for normal peeps. It is really unfair. Government
| regulation and control of housing prices is the solution.
| Darmody wrote:
| If it is the solution, why doesn't it work wherever they have
| tried?
| qayxc wrote:
| Because people are good at gaming the system.
| Darmody wrote:
| What about investors not wanting to invest a single cent
| into building new estate because it is not economically
| viable anymore? Is that gaming the system?
| qayxc wrote:
| "Economically viable" must not be confused with
| "extremely profitable". Housing is economically viable as
| soon as revenue is positive in the mid- to long term.
|
| Extremely profitable on the other hand is much more
| attractive to investors than economically viable. It
| promises short term ROI with great revenue and very low
| risk in overheated markets.
|
| There's a balance to be struck here and thinking in
| extremes just isn't helpful.
|
| And yes, I do consider buying up land and just letting it
| sit there until housing crisis becomes severe enough that
| developing luxury housing becomes profitable to be gaming
| the system.
|
| It's funny how quick investors are to complain about
| something not being economically viable and praising the
| free market and its power to innovate, while at the same
| the cost of developing houses goes up and up and up.
|
| Where's the innovation there? How come a portable
| supercomputer can be bought brand new for the equivalent
| of a day's worth of work today, while at the same time
| fewer and fewer people can afford to own a home?
|
| Why hasn't the increasing demand for affordable housing
| spurred innovation in that sector and why is nobody even
| asking that question?
| amelius wrote:
| It's like joining a game of Monopoly after a few rounds have
| already been played.
| llampx wrote:
| EXACTLY. This is how I feel as a millennial who hasn't
| started on the ground floor and doesn't have rich parents who
| did.
| taurath wrote:
| Housing in all winner-take-all cities are fucked. Here's hoping
| remote work can start to really spread things around with
| intentional communities trying to bring specific types of
| people together.
| timdaub wrote:
| I've been protected by this rule. I live in the north of Berlin.
| It saved me roughly 100EUR a month. I found it fair for the
| appartment I rent. I can't say much about other cases.
|
| Since I have to pay back the cummulative savings to my landlord
| in case the law is overturned(which happened today), I saved
| 100EUR extra each month.
|
| It's likely that I'll now have to increase my rent payment by
| 100EUR and pay back roughly 1000EUR to my landlord.
|
| I'm happy I prepared for this situation. It's OK for me. However,
| I'm worried about friends that may haven't prepared...
| Tenoke wrote:
| 100e is pretty good. For me it was 500e less, and it made it
| even less possible for me to move to a smaller place which I've
| wanted to do since breaking up with my ex.
|
| >It's OK for me. However, I know others that will likely lose
| their flat now.
|
| They won't just lose their flat. If they can't backpay the rent
| (thousands in some cases) their Schufa will be ruined which
| will make it even harder if at all possible to get a new place.
| timdaub wrote:
| > They won't just lose their flat. If they can't backpay the
| rent (thousands in some cases) their Schufa will be ruined
| which will make it even harder if at all possible to get a
| new place.
|
| Damn, I didn't consider this but it's true. Usually,
| landlords also want a Mietschuldenbescheinigung to check if
| you have rent debt with previous landlords.
|
| What upsets me about the situation is that I feel like some
| people are experimenting with my property/contract/living
| condition. I'd prefer if they could just leave me alone. It
| makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe.
| nicbou wrote:
| There's still the Mietpreisbremse, which many people could try
| to apply. It's not as straightforward, but it's not a contested
| law.
|
| Unfortunately, this takes time, and people will be asked to
| give the money back NOW.
| f6v wrote:
| Berlin is a weird place. If you're an art student working as a
| barista, I don't think you can expect to live in a hip
| neighbourhood. Certainly not 15 minutes away from
| Alexanderplatz(city centre). And you certainly can't expect that
| if the city is a self-proclaimed "startup capital", with
| thousands of tech workers who enjoy 80k+ salaries.
| durnygbur wrote:
| > 80k+ salaries.
|
| Last time I intensively job searched in Berlin there was a
| clear salary ceiling at 70-75k EUR annually for software roles.
| yladiz wrote:
| I'm not sure how long ago you looked, but that definitely
| isn't the case, both from research and personal experience.
| pitkali wrote:
| While 80k is above a median for a senior software developer,
| it is not unattainable, as far as I know.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Can you provide sources?
| f6v wrote:
| The only one I know https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/
| u/0/d/13p6Hr9kSZuVKbQgO...
| ewindal wrote:
| Amazon Berlin has >EUR80k for entry level roles.
| Tenoke wrote:
| FAANG typically pay more than everyone else.
|
| Also sites like glassdoor report 70k for the _average_
| Berlin Amazon Software Engineer Salary.
|
| https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Amazon-Software-
| Development...
| [deleted]
| durnygbur wrote:
| I was interviewed onsite at Amazon's Berlin office. The
| breathless technical marathon ensured me they're place for
| toxic assholes and the only motivation for going through
| the process could be above the market salary. Having given
| up on trying during the process I truly regret the time I
| wasted on dealing with them.
| jashmatthews wrote:
| Startups with no money yes but places like Zalando pay ~100k
| total comp. People working for places like Microsoft or
| GitHub more like ~150k.
|
| https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Berlin-
| Ger...
| durnygbur wrote:
| I was pulled through so many hopeless recruitment
| processes, tests, take home assignments, teasing sessions
| that I simply have no reason to believe these amounts. No
| promise will make me sacrifice even an hour more. Like
| literally - email me already an employment contract with
| this amount on it.
| f6v wrote:
| I mean, I don't do whiteboard coding interviews either.
| But Amazons, Zalandos and Wayfairs pay that.
| jashmatthews wrote:
| https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-
| sala...
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Good old gentrification... "Look at that hip area with the art
| students working as baristas, let's live there.".
|
| A few years later, the neighborhood cafe is just full of tech
| workers coding the frontend framework for the next food
| delivery app and you wonder where the soul went.
| llampx wrote:
| Yeah, millennials coding apps are the problem. Not the ones
| owning the cafe, the building it resides in and the
| apartments everyone lives in.
| durnygbur wrote:
| You hate us cause you ain't us. No worries we don't pass
| through the apartment applicant selection either. Now you
| need to be young attractive woman with a partner, Western
| sounding names and surnames, both employed with high salary.
| All documented.
| Tenoke wrote:
| What? Non-Germans have it much harder finding a place here
| even if their names are western.
| f6v wrote:
| Tech workers are top earners. And at my last company in
| Berlin we haven't had a German developer in years.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Depends on nationality preference of the person selecting
| the candidate -\\_(tsu)_/-. Either way Germanic surname
| will always win over Polish one.
| f6v wrote:
| Unless your name is Kevin. Then it's a no-go.
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