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Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

reuters.com

291–300 of 594 posts

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#291

As much as I can sympathise with the predicament, this decision, and the Berlin housing market in general, absolutely baffles me. When I moved here I was warned of 100 people turning up to a flat viewing, and laughed it off as some hyperbole. Only later did I find out that it actually happens , albeit the maximum viewing I went to was around a meagre 50. Having come from the UK, I found the situation in Berlin to be…

Rent control never works, but that never dissuades governments from trying it again and again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation

It works reasonably well in the rest of Germany.

As for it not working in Berlin, I have a hard time to come up with _anything_ that works there, so my hunch would be that the housing market in Berlin is broken not because of rent control, but because it's Berlin.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#292

As much as I can sympathise with the predicament, this decision, and the Berlin housing market in general, absolutely baffles me. When I moved here I was warned of 100 people turning up to a flat viewing, and laughed it off as some hyperbole. Only later did I find out that it actually happens , albeit the maximum viewing I went to was around a meagre 50. Having come from the UK, I found the situation in Berlin to be…

It’s an interesting catch 22. The housing you make margins off are expensive housing in expensive locations. The reason to keep rents affordable is that it’s generally a good thing in terms of keeping gentrificarion and segregation in check. Cap on rent can’t be the only policy though. I see the exact same situation in Stockholm, and there’s a concensus that profit margins are not good enough. How to solve it? Either…

The solution is pretty basic and was proven to work for centuries before extreme zoning intervention by governments happened at the behest of property owners wanting their gentrification.

To fund the program you institute luxury property taxes on units larger than what you want your average citizen to afford and actually property tax businesses (which many cities do not do, because they bribed companies to locate there with agreement they would have substantially reduced taxes). Both should be at progressive rates, the larger companies and homeowners paying more. In any city that has the modern housing price crisis in effect there is plenty of money floating around to pay this and would not "kill" the city to institute because demand is so high already.

Then, with the revenue, you A) invest in public and modernized infrastructure and B) rezone for mixed use or simply dezone your city (the only real valid arguments for zoning nowadays are to avoid overburdening infrastructure and to maintain specific skylines, but policies that prevent vertically entirely are wholly draconian and cannot stand - there needs to be an avenue for vertical growth no matter what).

The infrastructure is ridiculously expensive. Decomissioning streets to build functional bike and walkable space infrastructure, building a comprehensive subway / light rail / tram / trolly network, supporting comprehensive bus service are all major projects. Every city, though, needs to be doing all of these. Private car ownership has to trend towards 0 for anyone living in the city proper, and proper zoning and tax code should incentivize almost anyone within a substantial difference to move towards the city because its cheaper.

Its cheaper to live in a 50 story condo building when you factor in all externalized costs - the lifetime of the building, the heating / cooling efficiency, the infrastructure requirements, the construction efficiency, the materials efficiency, the cost of public services to support the building, the access to productive labor and jobs local to the residence, the climate damaged caused by long commutes from suburbs, the environmental impact of sprawl, the maintenance on infrastructure to support it. People look at how 2500 condos might cost 100 million for the building alone and think that means its inefficient and too expensive... but in practice A) the costs are inflated due to regulatory impedance B) there isn't enough high density demand in most western countries to get economies of scale reducing prices of construction the way they are in Asia and C) even when the building is more expensive everything else is cheaper.

Which probably comes back to the fundamental reason we are in this state in the first place. Externalities are not factored in. Environmental harm, infrastructure & services upkeep, human potential lost, etc all factor in to cost the modern sprawl low density lifestyle and our societies dearly. Cities are actively hurting their responsibility to grow to mitigate this damage, but its also on nations as a whole to stop subsidizing lifestyles that hurt the plant, nations, and people themselves. Cities don't have money to build because money is siphoned to maintain the status quo and that keeps this unnatural unsustainable relationship in place.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#293

As much as I can sympathise with the predicament, this decision, and the Berlin housing market in general, absolutely baffles me. When I moved here I was warned of 100 people turning up to a flat viewing, and laughed it off as some hyperbole. Only later did I find out that it actually happens , albeit the maximum viewing I went to was around a meagre 50. Having come from the UK, I found the situation in Berlin to be…

The rental freeze does not apply for new housing.

(Wohnungsneubau wird vom Gesetz gänzlich ausgenommen.)

https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2...

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#294
post #259

If affordable housing is an issue, then perhaps the government should provide it for its citizens, like building huge high-rises in Berlin. I used to rent in an expensive city but bought a cheap house in the suburbs (thankfully I work remotely). Everything is cheaper out here, from gas to utilities to food. But I did experience classism from my friends and family: there is status living in a world-class city. And hav…

That's one of the things being done. Problem is that for a while they didn't (that's what happens when you get people who think the market magically fixes things in power) and building new ones takes time. To get that time a stop gap measure was needed, hence freezing prices for five years for existing houses, no price freeze on new houses.

The "market" would like to fix it. But it is not allowed to. Because, well, politics or: "people in power" :-)

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#295
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disincentivize new construction? Oh but half the city is under construction work right now, they're building shopping centers, offices and hotels (I can count at least 6 10+ storey buildings being constructed in a 600m radius from my place, only one is for flats) Investors want to max out how much money they make, tourists bring way more money than the general population, especially in Berlin

So tax the shopping center, offices and hotels more to balance them out.

The shopping centers, offices, and hotels have political clout and organized professional influence on the government.

Average joes, especially those who want to live in the city but cannot afford it, do not get a seat at the table.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#296

If affordable housing is an issue, then perhaps the government should provide it for its citizens, like building huge high-rises in Berlin. I used to rent in an expensive city but bought a cheap house in the suburbs (thankfully I work remotely). Everything is cheaper out here, from gas to utilities to food. But I did experience classism from my friends and family: there is status living in a world-class city. And hav…

> If affordable housing is an issue, then perhaps the government should provide it for its citizens We already pay very high taxes in Berlin and not really getting much back from it (police, firefighters, cleaning services, public transit, even government offices are heavily underfunded). This idea would only make the taxes higher or take away much needed money from other areas.

What about issuing bonds and using rent to pay off the bonds?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#297
post #65
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.

This is not a real problem in Berlin, not at any scale that it matters.

Berlin receives 30.000+ new people every year and builds only ~1/3 of the necessary flats. It just cannot work this way.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#298

I think the main reason why this makes me so angry is because it's Berlin, again, doing something fiscally irresponsible that the rest of the country is going to have to finance in the long run. How I imagine it to go down would be like this: Today the politicians pat themselves on the back for their progressive stance on this topic. In year 2 of the rent freeze most of the property investment will have seized, new c…

What do you call the chicanery that companies like Vonovia are doing except evil speculation?

Yes, heavy demand with slower increasing supply will result in higher prices, but we're talking about homes here, not iPhones. People can't afford a home any more, it's inhuman to just let them be bled dry or get kicked out in the name of real-estate profit.

Your critique's puzzling especially because this law only applies to existing buildings

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#300
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> crack down on illegal hotel businesses?

They have already done it and recovered less than 3000 flats. Again, illegal hotels are not a real problem in this city.

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