Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze • Hacker News Board

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#381

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #309

zanny wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every western nation has systemically failed to recognize or support the insanely high demand for high density living in the 21st century. That is where the future of economics is, where the future of humanity in general pretty much is, and every democracy is consistently demonstrating the total inability for legislatures to sacrifice the advantage of those lucky enough to inhabit cities as they exist now…

I don't buy any of this. Growing up everyone around me saw the city as somewhere you begrudgingly went out of necessity and only lived there if you had no choice, and I'm inclined to agree. In virtually every aspect I find more countryside-ish living much more pleasant. Consider virtual reality and remote work. I imagine much of the workforce will move to virtual offices in the near to medium-far future when corporat…

[deleted]

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#382

Post by jlawson » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #241

jlawson wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish someone with a deeper understanding would go to Japan and study how they got this so right. Their zoning laws don't separate uses, only nuisance levels, so you often see residential in commercial areas and small shops in residential neighborhoods. It's amazingly effective at reducing how far you need to go to get places, and gives the whole city a much more organic feel. Plus, there is actually housing if ther…

There's definitely a cultural element but it's also due to how buildings are used in japan. Black mold makes it where you really don't want to deal with a structure over 40 years old so there's always things being destroyed and new structures being built rather than old structures being renovated; neighborhoods are in a constant turnover and buildings are disposable. All of urban Tokyo was also destroyed during WWII…

I actually thought of both of these and discounted both. Here's why.

Post-WW2 buildings in Japan were crap so I can see why they'd replace those. But I think recent buildings are a lot more long-term. My sense is that they replaced because of the post-WW2 cheap building boom, not because of the climate/mold. It's no warmer or wetter than many places in America, and northern Japan is quite dry and chilly.

For the "never bombed America" argument, I'd just point to Europe, which was bombed. Or to new American cities built 1950 onwards, which suffer the same problems. I'd also point to Kyoto, which wasn't destroyed in WW2, but is still functional in terms of real estate AFAIK (though I'd love to hear otherwise).

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#383

Post by seunosewa » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

max_hoffmann wrote: post #249

2T1Qka0rEiPr wrote: post #22

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…

Freezing rents is not meant to be a solution for a lack of housing. It’s a solution to the explosive increase of rents of existing ones. There are lots of people where the rents of their current apartment have increased so much, that they had to move out. This solution is trying to fix that. Also freezing rents doesn’t mean Berlin will stop building new houses. If there is big demand for housing in a city one needs b…

Why must people currently living in a city be able to do so in the future? I think it makes sense to allow people whose skills are more valuable to a city to take the place of those whose skills are ... more valuable elsewhere. Cities evolve. Do I deserve to continue living in a city in perpetuity just because I happened to get to the city before others?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#384

Post by rlpb » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

asokoloski wrote: post #212

bpfrh wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is an indication that people are cheap and a person who bought a apartment as an investment now makes 30-60€ a night vs about 600 a month. There is a reason hotels are expensive. Airbnb does the same as uber. They start a business with either exploits a loophole or is illegal. Btw. at least in austria, if you want to rent your apartment on such a plattform you have to clear it with everyone who lives in that ho…

Yes, there's a big difference between someone who rents out their apartment using Airbnb because they're away half the year, or has a spare room that they rent out, and someone who buys an entire building of 20 apartments and turns it into a hotel in all but name, skirting around all the consumer protections and regulations that have been put into place around hotels. You can argue that the regulation of hotel-style…

> ...turns it into a hotel in all but name, skirting around all the consumer protections and regulations that have been put into place around hotels.

Then the protections and regulations need to be adjusted to apply to businesses that operate like hotels, regardless of what they're called.

There's fundamentally no reason such a hotel shouldn't be able to list their rooms on Airbnb - as long as customers aren't deceived, and the law is complied with.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#385

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #232

usefulcat wrote: post #4

Symptom: rents are too high Cause: insufficient housing supply Solution: disincentivize new construction?

> 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

Yeah, it sounds like shopping centers, offices, and hotels are being built because they will be profitable, since there's no artificial limits on their profits.

Housing isn't profitable, so it's not being built. And more and longer rent freezes will worsen the problem.

The developers are being very rational here in what they're choosing to build.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#386

Post by jaredklewis » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 8:59 PM UTC

galvin wrote: post #230

jaredklewis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Rent seeking behaviour causes prices to rise making the market inaccessible to homebuyers. Making property less attractive as an investment should help curb this tendency.

Sure that argument makes some sense, but my comment was in response to the claim that the main issue is illegal hotel businesses. If that is the case, If don't see how this law can't make that problem worse.

If it is attractive to investors to run illegal hotels now, it will only become more attractive to do so once they are unable to raise rents on normal tenants.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#387

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

moate wrote: post #379

lotsofpulp wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay for "lower paying jobs" will rise, assuming the city actually needs them.

Right, except they don't. It's higher than rural areas, but that doesn't mean it's in line with the general cost of living in the area. I promise you, if you go to any major world city there are people living there who are poor and barely scraping by.

That is the trade-off they are making in exchange for things such as access to more employers. At some point though, they will demand more money or move out, assuming their quality of life relative to other places they can live drops to a sufficiently low level.

There are people who are poor and scraping by everywhere, not just cities. Low paying jobs are low paying because the demand is not high enough relative to the supply.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#388

Post by q3k » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

andys627 wrote: post #35

sdegutis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with legally limiting artificial price hikes to prevent people from abusing Demand > Supply for the sake of their greed? [Edit] To clarify, they seem to be "artificial" price hikes because they don't in any way necessary to cover costs. People realize they can charge more and get more money, so they simply do. That's inherently avaricious and unethical. Sure, maybe prices work themselves out, so that pri…

The market works this out "automatically" when supply is greater than demand. If there are too many dwelling units then landlords will compete with eachother for tenants by lowering prices relative to eachother.

In the meantime while we wait for this to happen, people will keep getting evicted due to rising rent. How long do we wait? When can we expect results?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#389

Post by Faark » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #339

max_hoffmann wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freezing rents is not meant to be a solution for a lack of housing. It’s a solution to the explosive increase of rents of existing ones. There are lots of people where the rents of their current apartment have increased so much, that they had to move out. This solution is trying to fix that. Also freezing rents doesn’t mean Berlin will stop building new houses. If there is big demand for housing in a city one needs b…

They are necessarily connected. Supply and demand is connected. If rents are frozen, that lowers housing liquidity (because people won’t move if their rent stays “affordable,”) which reduces supply and necessarily creates a shortage. It lowers mobility as well since there is a shortage of available housing which leads to inefficiency— if someone moves to another job in another part of the city, that person would be l…

I get the argument of less investment into maintenance, but new buildings with higher capacity (instead of higher quality) could still make you more profit than current ones while boosting supply. Sadly new constructions will continue to target the high price market, since the new caps seem to specifically exclude them.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#390

Post by MickerNews » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

2T1Qka0rEiPr wrote: post #22

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 solution is to build houses, but what kind of investor is going to throw their money at Berlin, where their opportunity to make a return on their investment is severely hampered?

Uh, the state. It's strange to me that someone can honestly ask this question. The free market has failed as is its wont in these matters, this failure always needs to be addressed by the state. Where were you for the last global economic collapse?