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Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

reuters.com

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Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#161

Post by jbullock35 »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #94
vtail wrote: post #3

As a person born and raised in Soviet Union, I strongly believe that whoever thinks that a proper economic response to raising prices is literally to order them to stop raising , is a lunatic.

Anyone who looks at regulations like this and sees the Soviet Union is themselves a lunatic. This is not a planned economy, and people do not need to profit from housing to build it, and housing should be a human right.

> people do not need to profit from housing to build it

Yes, I'm sure that you volunteer your services to build new housing all the time.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#162

Post by kaybe »

Vinnl wrote: post #141
motivated_gear wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been tried before in a number of different flavors. Most leave people worse off. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-18/yup-re...

Thanks, I hadn't realised that obviously existing landlords might stop renting out a place, which would reduce supply of housing - that could be problematic. It also mentions that apartments got transformed into condos. This might be a problem with my not being a native speaker, but: if one apartment is turned into multiple condos, isn't it able to house more people? (Though being "new" housing, I suppose they'd then…

Yes, it can house more people, but you can also demand a lot more for the same area in smaller units, so rent per square metre goes up.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#163

Post by wnevets »

vtail wrote: post #3

As a person born and raised in Soviet Union, I strongly believe that whoever thinks that a proper economic response to raising prices is literally to order them to stop raising , is a lunatic.

Has everyone forgotten about the price freezes in the US? This is hardly a socialist tactic.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#164

Post by bpfrh »

vtail wrote: post #3

As a person born and raised in Soviet Union, I strongly believe that whoever thinks that a proper economic response to raising prices is literally to order them to stop raising , is a lunatic.

As a person living in austria, I strongly believe that goverment build housing and strong regulation of pricing and the market is the only way to keep housing affordable for all people and not make it a speculation object like in germany/berlin.

Did you know that in the late 90 the housing was good and affordable?

And that a big chunk was owned by the city or state?

That these things were then sold for pennies, to companies who only want to exploit people?

Did you know that after there were laws passed against raising the rent exorbitant, many companies cheated?

They raised the cost that you have to pay for the house services which are included, without doing that services or charging way to high

edit: fixed formatting

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#165

Post by jaredklewis »

rchaud wrote: post #65
vtail wrote: post #3

As a person born and raised in Soviet Union, I strongly believe that whoever thinks that a proper economic response to raising prices is literally to order them to stop raising , is a lunatic.

I wasn't aware the Soviet Union allowed rich investors to buy up chunks of the housing supply and rent them out as hotels without a business license, while also bypassing the numerous regulations that hotels have to abide by.

Well, if that’s the issue, as a non German who doesn’t understand the situation or surrounding political environment very well, wouldn’t a much better solution then be to crack down on illegal hotel businesses?

Seems like this law is only going to make things worse: the rent freeze will make renting even less appealing to owners, only increasing their desire to run their property as a hotel. No?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#166

Post by bpfrh »

refurb wrote: post #132
SomeOldThrow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who looks at regulations like this and sees the Soviet Union is themselves a lunatic. This is not a planned economy, and people do not need to profit from housing to build it, and housing should be a human right.

OK, then look at NYC in the 1970's. Severe rent control resulted in crumbling buildings. Price controls are bad policy.

NYC is in america which has a complete different economic Idea. While Germany was and sometimes still is a social market economy America is a full blown free markt, of course just slapping a rent control and nothing else is a bad idea

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#167

Post by nielsole »

lostdog wrote: post #155
andy_ppp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land values rise to make the margins developers work within very small. Land is a problem everywhere and someone owns it and will always try to extract the best price if you have planning permission for it. So maybe capping land prices and forcing sales for desirable schemes would work better. It will of course never happen as ownership is fundamental to our thinking in the west. I actually find the idea of the gover…

We should consider a 75% capital gains rate on land value increases. After all, the owner typically had little effect on their own land value. A big effect comes from their neighbors building shops and offices and the biggest effect comes from the city building roads and transit and other infrastructure. Land "investment" is the least productive form of investment. If you built a building, then yes, profit from that,…

The georgist approach.

I was pondering a high annual ground tax instead of a capital gains tax

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#168

Post by a_c_s »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #94
vtail wrote: post #3

As a person born and raised in Soviet Union, I strongly believe that whoever thinks that a proper economic response to raising prices is literally to order them to stop raising , is a lunatic.

Anyone who looks at regulations like this and sees the Soviet Union is themselves a lunatic. This is not a planned economy, and people do not need to profit from housing to build it, and housing should be a human right.

> people do not need to profit from housing to build it

People do need to profit from something to do it in a capitalist society.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#169

Post by chimeracoder »

CPLX wrote: post #138
chimeracoder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal of rent stabilization is to make neighborhoods more stable. The concept is right there in the name, and that's exactly what it does. No, it's not. Rent stabilization is, purportedly, about ensuring that poor or low-income residents specifically aren't pushed out of neighborhoods or New York City entirely due to gentrification and rising rents. In terms of making housing affordable for those people, rent st…

That's really not actually why these laws have been created. Their intent has always been to protect existing residents. Not poor or low income, necessarily, in fact for the most part the original idea was to protect the middle class, not so much the poor. Which should be unsurprising if you have any basic concept of who wields political power in cities. The key distinction is between people who are already there and…

> That's really not actually why these laws have been created. Their intent has always been to protect existing residents.

I'm well aware of the history of rent regulation in New York City, and this is flat-out incorrect.

> Not poor or low income, necessarily, in fact for the most part the original idea was to protect the middle class, not so much the poor. Which should be unsurprising if you have any basic concept of who wields political power in cities.

Rent stabilization, in its current form, is a handout to the upper-middle class, couched in rhetoric about helping the "poor" and "working class".

> It's not that hard to figure out: having massive rent increases possible upon vacancy, as well as almost no means testing (only in one special case) are two of the several obvious tells.

This is... not how the rent stabilization law in New York City works.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#170

Post by CPLX »

bko wrote: post #160
baron816 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with these types of price controls is that it’s inherently unfair. If you’re on the inside and lucky enough to get a rent controlled apartment, you win. Everyone else loses.

I would also note that it promotes illegal behavior as people who are lucky enough will often illegally sublet the home at the market price.

All laws that prevent people from doing something they want to do promote illegal behavior by this definition.
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