Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze • Hacker News Board

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#391

Post by pantalaimon » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

johnnyfaehell wrote: post #92

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.

To be fair, this isn't their first or only response. They're building housing as fast as possible. Within a 5 minute walk from my apartment in the last year there has been 5 brand new housing towers built. They've also introduced laws to stop people from buying up apartments to rent out via Airbnb. Considering even with the law that limits how much they can raise their prices, they're just doing unneeded renovations…

> They're building housing as fast as possible.

That's not true at all. The number of building permits granted has actually dropped and when new developments are granted, the number of apartments build will always be negotiated down from the original proposal.

It's insane. The dense Gründerzeit quarters are the ones that are most popular, yet we are unable to build anything alike.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#392

Post by MickerNews » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

durdleturtle wrote: post #281

This seems like it could be dangerous as it creates incentives for slumlords. If the landlords need to raise rent but they can't, then the only way for them to turn a profit is to cut their expenses.

Or just sell up and find a more respectable way of making money, increasing supply in the buyer occupier market, lowering prices.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#393

Post by anoncake » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

usefulcat wrote: post #4

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

The German construction industry doesn't have any spare capacity as is.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#394

Post by fzeroracer » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:17 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…

Where I grew up it was the exact opposite. I lived in a small suburbanish town which was 50% college students and 50% retirees. Almost all of my friends and fellow graduates left for the larger cities where job opportunities were far more abundant and where there was generally a lot more to do and see.

Which also seems to be supported by the general population trends. Rural cities are dying, with the younger generations moving closer to urban centers. Remote work and virtual offices will give you a better choice of city, but people are not likely to move out to places where there's nothing to do, terrible infrastructure and less opportunity in the scenario where you choose to find a new job.

And people have been saying that remote work will cause the trends to reverse any day now. So far that hasn't stopped companies even in SV; instead they just build new offices in other cities.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#395

Post by 2tab » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #66

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.

It's like we never learn https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/19/why-stockholm-...

That Stockholm article is deceptive at best. The Stockholm housing market suffers above all else from lack of regulation of mortgages. The rental market simply can't compete with a 100 year double mortgage without default. The result being Sweden having among the highest amount of household debt of the OECD countries. Of course the head of the landlord lobby organization wants their members to be able to charge higher rents despite few rentals being built today when they are able to charge three times the rent of older rent controlled units. As most people simple can't afford them.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#396

Post by pkaye » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #295

pkaye wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Looks like the average joes have more clout than the residential landlords given the 5-year rent freeze.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#397

Post by nerfhammer » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

seunosewa wrote: post #377

xg15 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in that case, either the rent lock will actually work - or it will increase the difficulty for everyone to get a flat, which essentially would have the same effect of driving people to the outskirts.

The people who can afford to pay higher rents are generally the most productive. They have important skills that employers are willing to pay high salaries for. They also pay more taxes and spend more money. If I ran a city, I would want more of those highly skilled workers in my city.

So, you're actually in favor of higher rents.

Why not mandate rent increases?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#398

Post by hokus » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

Its really simple. We should tax property AND rent to the point where it becomes unprofitable to hoard it for purposes of unproductive wealth extraction. Then change all rent contracts into lease-buy contracts.

You would accumulate a good percentage of madly overpriced rentals that no one wants then they go bankrupt one by one. You get those delicious market dynamics we [apparently] crave more than any social convention. Buildings should be hot potatoes that you don't want to hold for to long. With this much demand it wont even affect housing prices but even if it did, who cares?

Gradually, (in stead of rent) people pay tax at market rates. We can keep the large scale wealth extraction and continue to force people into productivity only it would be the government doing it.

The same logic applies as with the teachers, taxi drivers, cleaners, garbage men, restaurant employees etc: If you don't like it you can just leave the city. Get some of that delicious mobility going and gtfo. They can just leave for the sake of efficiency and availability. Its that simple: Just go away.

If you have to chose between [say] 1) a corner store OR 2) a land lord it should be obvious which one to get rid of.

If they are contributing to quality of life by selling food and employing people we should consider giving the store a tax cut. One could also extend the tax cut to the people working there and have cheap stores.

Its hilariously unproductive to have a usury scheme of greedy unproductive rent seekers extracting wealth from every transaction that is some how remotely related to real estate.

I just want to pay for the ice cream, pay the people involved in making the ice cream happen. Why would I pay 80% to someone who doesn't do anything I need?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#399

Post by nerfhammer » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #370

nerfhammer wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that shortages are not reduced by having more of the thing that there is a shortage of?

It is at least clearly like that with roads (see Wikipedia link). With housing I can imagine a similar effect.

So why not actually destroy roads and housing then? Won't that make things better?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#400

Post by jimmaswell » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #325

jimmaswell wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 I assume you grew up in the United States?

Yes, upstate NY.