Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 194 posts

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#171

Post by TomMckenny »

wbl wrote: post #160
TomMckenny wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rents out pace wages in suburbs and rural areas too. They rise in SF, Fresno and Anchorage. Even places people flee like Flint Michigan, land costs rise. They are unbearably high even in tiny apartment Tokyo where a 4m ceiling means you have no roof. They rise in places with bad public transportation and good. The rise in supposedly under-priced Berlin and supposedly over priced San Francisco. Land is not a normal co…

It did fix housing prices in LA. That's why for the past 50 years LA has frozen its zoned capacity which used to be staggeringly high.

The LA metro didn't start construction until 1990. Prices have risen by a factor of 6 since then. Of course they probably would have risen even more but it was obviously inadequate to reduce prices.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#172

Post by TomMckenny »

bobl wrote: post #145
TomMckenny wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rents out pace wages in suburbs and rural areas too. They rise in SF, Fresno and Anchorage. Even places people flee like Flint Michigan, land costs rise. They are unbearably high even in tiny apartment Tokyo where a 4m ceiling means you have no roof. They rise in places with bad public transportation and good. The rise in supposedly under-priced Berlin and supposedly over priced San Francisco. Land is not a normal co…

While I do agree that land is different, sometimes I think the problem is that people see it as such. When housing markets rise people get rich, just like they do with e.g. stocks. The lack of affordability is a factor of inequality, and especially inequality in opportunities. That is why moving to a smaller cities isn't a solution for most people, because the problem is with opportunities which are appearing in citi…

Stock, in principle, is an investment in an enterprise that creates wealth. Like building cars or growing wheat.

Buying and selling houses merely moves wealth around (typically from younger generations to older). It creates nothing, incentivizes nothing and looses more and more to mortgage holders. It can indeed make people rich but only to the degree someone else gets poorer.

The trend is for an ever growing number of single family homes to become rentals owned by investors. As prices rise further and further above middle class ability to afford, this trend will increase. You can make far more money buying a house and renting it than buying it and sitting in it. So in the long term owner-residents are never going to be able to compete for homes with large investor in an unregulated market.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#173

Post by baybal2 »

ummonk wrote: post #163
dmix wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way to keep rents this low in the face of rising demand is public housing that is rented out below market rates to low income tenants, or via a lottery. Or you know, build more housing.

At some point you’ll run into construction cost limits for multistory dwellings. I don’t know how close Berlin is to that point but given how much cheaper their rent is than other major cities they’re probably doing a better job than most of building housing.

> At some point you’ll run into construction cost limits for multistory dwellings.

And Berlin is light years away from that. A 30 storey apartment building there is already counted as a "skyscraper," while Chinese are about to start talking about 50 storey as "a new norm" in some more expensive parts of the country.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#174

Post by IloveHN84 »

adrianN wrote: post #9

The truth is that rents in Berlin are exceptionally cheap compared to other major cities. Try finding a flat in London or Paris for The only way to keep rents this low in the face of rising demand is public housing that is rented out below market rates to low income tenants, or via a lottery.

Almost nowhere in the city center are the rents less than 10€/sqm now in Berlin. If so, the flat is probably in a very old stable and in a not so good condition.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#175

Post by adrianN »

IloveHN84 wrote: post #174
adrianN wrote: post #9

The truth is that rents in Berlin are exceptionally cheap compared to other major cities. Try finding a flat in London or Paris for The only way to keep rents this low in the face of rising demand is public housing that is rented out below market rates to low income tenants, or via a lottery.

Almost nowhere in the city center are the rents less than 10€/sqm now in Berlin. If so, the flat is probably in a very old stable and in a not so good condition.

I pay 10€/sqm and need 30 minutes by bike to Brandenburg Gate. That's for a four year old contract. People who have been living in their apartments for decades, that is, the people who are too old to easily move and fear rising rents, usually pay less.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#176

Post by adrianN »

dmix wrote: post #74
adrianN wrote: post #9

The truth is that rents in Berlin are exceptionally cheap compared to other major cities. Try finding a flat in London or Paris for The only way to keep rents this low in the face of rising demand is public housing that is rented out below market rates to low income tenants, or via a lottery.

> The only way to keep rents this low in the face of rising demand is public housing that is rented out below market rates to low income tenants, or via a lottery. Or you know, build more housing.

Pretty hard to do in a dense city and doesn't help very much. Unless kill Berlin's character and transform the city center into a collection of skyscrapers, demand for the city center will always far outstrip supply. Berlin is not San Francisco, where large parts of the city center are single family homes with two stories or less.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#177

Post by pell »

berlinerluft wrote: post #159
pell wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you need to be obnoxiously sarcastic here. There are quite a few situations where governments set limits on how much a good can be priced at. It definitely is entitlement to be able to rent to the highest bidder.

It's only entitlement if you come from a socialist perspective and think property is a frivolous concept.

Germany - like many other countries - is not a libertarian state. Pricing caps are not new here, underpricing and overpricing are defined and limited in certain scenarios and for a number of goods like doctor or lawyer fees, medication, books, your ISP, etc.

Obviously one can debate such decisions and their merit but if you simply reduce this to having a "frivolous concept of property" it's difficult to have a conversation with you because it seems like you're choosing to be destructive instead of using arguments.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#178

Post by nerfhammer »

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…

You say that like moving somewhere where there are a lot of good jobs is something only snotty upperclass twits would ever want to do. This mental image justifies nimby ladder-raising by trivializing labor mobility, the massive decline of which is a huge problem. E.g. https://neighborhoodeffects.mercatus.org/2017/01/26/why-the-...

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#179

Post by moccachino »

rstupek wrote: post #81
moccachino wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I've actually got nothing against rich people or even the idea of super rich people. But the whole system is set up in such a way that if you're wealthy you own the world and have to actively screw up to not get wealthier. The system just needs a tiny self-correction mechanism. And the problem with immense wealth is not raising inflation or anything like that, that is market stuff that will correct itself. The…

Robert Kraft may have to disagree with you on your last assertion that the law can't touch rich people.

The law won't touch rich people where they care, their money. Why are there still tax havens? Why do corporations still make special tax exemption deals? Why are tax loopholes not as aggressively fought as drug smuggling?

And even the case you linked to, very wealthy people are much less likely to be charged with these kinds of crime as well.

Re: Berlin Builds Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution

#180

Post by berlinerluft »

pell wrote: post #177
berlinerluft wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only entitlement if you come from a socialist perspective and think property is a frivolous concept.

Germany - like many other countries - is not a libertarian state. Pricing caps are not new here, underpricing and overpricing are defined and limited in certain scenarios and for a number of goods like doctor or lawyer fees, medication, books, your ISP, etc. Obviously one can debate such decisions and their merit but if you simply reduce this to having a "frivolous concept of property" it's difficult to have a conver…

To simplify: to be entitled to something and to pay for it are some very different things. I'd argue that somebody who claims wealthy people paying for stuff is the same as entitlement is the person who is actually destructive.

As for the other German laws: I can't think of anything good that has come from them. Socialism has a way to sneak up on countries. That's all there is to it.

Post reply on HN