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Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

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Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#91

Post by hawski »

tjansen wrote: post #50

I live in a different but still expensive Germany city and rent a apartment from a city-owned public housing company. The rent of the landlord's apartments is 20-30% lower than what you would pay in the free market, and in my neighbourhood I can get a pretty good idea of what people do to get one of those highly desired apartments. It's just crazy. I have heard everything short of bribing the person responsible for s…

Yeah, apartments is one part of it all. I'm trying to find a place in a kindergarten and it's hell. In Berlin kindergartens are free for some time and there are no free places. My wife today tried to find a place in a private kindergarten, no luck even in one for 800 EUR/month.

If we knew German language and customs better maybe it would be easier. But then I would probably just think about creating our own.

We're getting desperate. If anyone knows about a place in a kita in Berlin for a 2 year old, please let me know! Private or whatever, or some kind of coop.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#92

Post by helen___keller »

Mirioron wrote: post #32
buro9 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to the limits of public transportation Fix this. People live within n time of where they want to be. If people can travel faster then the space within n time can be greater. This is the key to Tokyo and other very large metropolis cities. Have public transport offer high speed and frequent rail routes, and then many local solutions from cycling, walking, buses, trams.

> This is the key to Tokyo and other very large metropolis cities. But they also live in small apartments and homes. I'm not convinced that Tokyo is a good example here. The key to this problem is to have jobs in places that aren't large urban centers. This way the population spreads out and housing becomes more affordable.

I don't completely agree with your assumption that living in Tokyo means you need to live in a shoebox (and especially not in Osaka which is about 2/3rds the price of Tokyo), but actually I think there's a case for cheap, somewhat-cramped housing with good transit access to the city, for those who want it.

In Japan, a middle class family can own a somewhat cramped (say 900 sqft?) 3bedroom house/apartment walking distance to a world class rail system and generally walking distance to schools and some stores too.

In America's top cities, a middle class family can't afford to own a 3 bedroom apartment with rail access generally, so they move outside the city to the suburbs where they often have to drive to work - which means they need to buy a car, buy gas, etc

But if you don't want the lawn and the picket fence, why is this the only option available? We've taken a one-size-fits-all approach with covering the vast majority of the country with big suburban houses, and the free market is proving people want options, evidenced by wildly inflating prices of urban properties.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#93

Post by golemiprague »

choeger wrote: post #17

Everyone and their cat wants to live as close as humanly possible to the hip center of the hip city. But of course, they literally do not want to pay the price. Why is there a vegan bakery specialized in Afghan Bagel[1] around the corner? Because there are enough hip, young professionals to pay for even the most unlikely specialty. Business can afford to cater to the most extraordinary taste, but only because there a…

There was a Jewish community in Afghanistan but most of them already immigrated. One thing is certain though, bagel was not part of their menu. Here are some chit chat that a youtuber did with Afghani Jews in Israel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xq0VEwrSr8

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#94

Post by helen___keller »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #47
bottled_poe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very interesting idea, but I’m not convinced it’s true. Why do you think that might be the outcome?

Because people are urbanizing despite the price hikes. Which means they prefer higher rents to staying where they are or moving. Probably because of other factors like commuting, other common distances being shorter, friends and family. So if higher prices are indeed a problem, holding people back from urbanizing, you'd think they'd urbanize faster if the pressures against it decrease.

It's certainly fair to think that there's some backlog of people who would move in if prices reach some price threshold, which could be considered resistance against the price falling lower than that threshold.

But in the case that you dont build units, you're still going to get some of that urbanization by those who can afford it (or are willing to struggle to survive in the city), and this will drive up prices even further.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#95

Post by jseliger »

choeger wrote: post #17

Everyone and their cat wants to live as close as humanly possible to the hip center of the hip city. But of course, they literally do not want to pay the price. Why is there a vegan bakery specialized in Afghan Bagel[1] around the corner? Because there are enough hip, young professionals to pay for even the most unlikely specialty. Business can afford to cater to the most extraordinary taste, but only because there a…

McSweeney's already covered this subject well: "I Will Do Anything to End Homelessness Except Build More Homes" https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en....

Berlin will do anything to reduce housing costs except build more housing.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#96

Post by debt »

choeger wrote: post #17

Everyone and their cat wants to live as close as humanly possible to the hip center of the hip city. But of course, they literally do not want to pay the price. Why is there a vegan bakery specialized in Afghan Bagel[1] around the corner? Because there are enough hip, young professionals to pay for even the most unlikely specialty. Business can afford to cater to the most extraordinary taste, but only because there a…

People want to live near their work so they can spend less time commuting and more time with their families. The people that successfully do this are usually highest in the food chain and push out of that area all the others lower on the food chain.

Thus cities filled with high-level management types as they're the only ones that can afford the rent and the mortgages.

To be fair, not everyone hates commuting, but many people do, thus the drive towards urbanization.

Furthermore, even if people don't mind commuting, they'd want to find a reasonably nice area to live to commute from. Those nice places get populated and overrun and people lower on the food chain get priced out; again the cycle continues.

Until all the people lowest on the food chain must commute very far distances. At some point, many of them realize that if they were to calculate the commute as unpaid work hours, that they're actually being paid way less than what they make on paper.

So now even those people lowest on the food chain move away in search for higher wage jobs with shorter commute times, and the cycle continues again and again.

The sweet spot is finding a short commute time with low-cost housing. That's truly maximizing your wage.

It's not just about being a hip urbanite.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#97

Post by helen___keller »

choeger wrote: post #17

Everyone and their cat wants to live as close as humanly possible to the hip center of the hip city. But of course, they literally do not want to pay the price. Why is there a vegan bakery specialized in Afghan Bagel[1] around the corner? Because there are enough hip, young professionals to pay for even the most unlikely specialty. Business can afford to cater to the most extraordinary taste, but only because there a…

> Everyone and their cat wants to live as close as humanly possible to the hip center of the hip city.

I don't agree with this assumption. Most people just want to live reasonably close to their job, a grocery store, and maybe a few restaurants, while having enough space that they feel is sufficient. Maybe add in some constraints for feeling safe or being in a decent school district.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#98

Post by patall »

Aeolun wrote: post #45
AndrewDucker wrote: post #7

Regulate behaviour, not ownership. If you want landlords to behave better, then rather than keeping them small, stick limits on what they can do.

Yeah, that was my impression when reading the article as well. If the problem is that new landlords are raising the rent by inordinate amounts, maybe that is what you should restrict instead. Though I’m not really opposed to breaking up big landlords either, it feels a bit disingenuous to punish people (or companies) for success.

It is a bit more complicated than that. The landlords are not raising the rent much (because laws exist already in that place) but rather 'offer' a new snow service (that you have to get, even though that we have maybe 2 half snow days a year) for 300 € a year, and a new janitor service for 50 € a month and so on. They upgrade your building (meaning you cannot really live there due to construction noises) and then put most of the upgrading price on top of your rent.

And finally, the big landlord companies do not exist due to success but due to big investment fonds deciding that it makes sense to buy many houses in such a cheap city. And to be honest, the actually good renting laws also play a big rule in this as they protect rents very good and such a single bad renter can become a big problem for small landlords. Also you have to cover so many restrictions etc that it becomes expensive/challenging to rent out (i.e my collegue is currently suing his landlady for a decrease in rent of 580€ per month due to an error in the contract)

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#99

Post by orangeplanet »

hawski wrote: post #91
tjansen wrote: post #50

I live in a different but still expensive Germany city and rent a apartment from a city-owned public housing company. The rent of the landlord's apartments is 20-30% lower than what you would pay in the free market, and in my neighbourhood I can get a pretty good idea of what people do to get one of those highly desired apartments. It's just crazy. I have heard everything short of bribing the person responsible for s…

Yeah, apartments is one part of it all. I'm trying to find a place in a kindergarten and it's hell. In Berlin kindergartens are free for some time and there are no free places. My wife today tried to find a place in a private kindergarten, no luck even in one for 800 EUR/month. If we knew German language and customs better maybe it would be easier. But then I would probably just think about creating our own. We're ge…

why not learn to speak German?

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#100

Post by pell »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #73
md5person wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I mean, I'd love a beachfront property in Maui but we can't all have that" The person you're replying to is basically saying: "having a place you can stay in, to keep you alive and going rather than homeless and broken, a safety net in essence - should be a right". Your response: "but we can't hand over free beachfront properties in Maui for everyone". You're diverting the discussion ("but look at what communism d…

This isn't just about having shelter, this is about having it in Berlin specifically. Who is entitled to that? The answer can't be "everyone".

So people with money are entitled to it then?
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