Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze • Hacker News Board

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#501

Post by blub » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 5:55 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #335

blub wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It will take away one of the ways they abuse people. Who knows, if they keep it up, maybe they'll be expropriated next :) 2. Investors touching the Berlin real estate market right now are anyways demanding exorbitant rates just because they can. Normally, this would at some point reach an equilibrium, but so far it's going up and up with no end in sight, pricing out most people. And I bet not all of them will scur…

So you hope for expropriation and irrationally behaving financial investors. I wanted to say I have a bridge to sell to you, but you already got the Airport... it just hurts that I'm paying for the punchline.

I'm not hoping for anything, but if a bad actor is playing with people's lives, I also don't have a problem that they get punished for it.

Now the only issue with expropriation would be the panic it cause in the markets, because otherwise who cares whether residential property company #201f exists or not. Setting some rules around renting, like the government has been and is doing, to prevent abuse and speculation is more palatable, but still has too many people running around screaming, based on a simplistic presentation of supply and demand without keeping into account that there are other factors that would and should trump the raw economic aspects.

It's not like the government has just instituted rent control and that's it. It's a temporary measure, restricted to existing stock. They will try to build more.

In the end it's not clear at all that leaving the situation spiral even more out of control would result in a better outcome than even just rent controls without other measures. Why is it so hard to get an apartment in Berlin that people resort to bribing the landlords? Why does one have to "compete" against dozens of other people, with zero ability to negotiate and having to sacrifice their financial privacy?

Last I read about it these companies had record profits and now you and others are complaining that they won't build any more because they can't get profits? How's that work, mate?

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#502

Post by mixmastamyk » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

objektif wrote: post #461

mixmastamyk wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Build too much… Thankfully, that's not a problem anywhere in places with skyrocketing rents.

It actually is, otherwise you would have seen Manhattan skyline reach the end of earth but it does not. Premium condos demand such high prices that developers dont have incentive to over supply the market.

The housing shortage is real, discussion of niche exceptions is not a great use of time.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#503

Post by nerfhammer » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

llampx wrote: post #405

nerfhammer wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you're actually in favor of higher rents. Why not mandate rent increases?

This is silly. Your counter-argument is basically also meddling in the market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#504

Post by luckylion » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 6:33 AM UTC

jordanbeiber wrote: post #371

luckylion wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just with more focus on social factors than on high profits Which is basically a political issue, because they will say "some people are more equal than others". Personally, I prefer naked capitalism over this "you need to know somebody in the party to get a good flat"-stuff.

Isn't the black market that occurs a form of naked capitalism? Here in Stockholm a lot of the public good properties have been sold out which have left precious little for too many to contend. Prices of labour and land are so expensive that, allegedly, profit margins are not good enough. The "know somebody" bit goes for plain hard capitalism as well, but is less in effect in a society that actually focus on the socia…

I don't know, I've always liked the "if you have money, you can buy it" part of capitalism. You can make money, but you can't change the fundamentals. In a racist white society, having money will not help you if you're black. In a politicized society, having money will not help you if you don't have the right worldview, or were born into the wrong family. In my home town, having money will not help you get into a (private) housing cooperative if you don't match the social criteria.

What you describe in Stockholm has happened around here too. Still, I prefer it: this way I do have a chance to get a (nice) apartment, even though I was born to a family where nobody was a member of the local ruling party. Sure, I may not get the great flat at the greatest location for a third the market price, but at least I can get one, even if it's more expensive. I'm happy to pay a higher price to be able to actually buy something.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#505

Post by chopin » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:00 AM UTC

southerndrift wrote: post #173

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…

The new law about the property tax links the tax amount to the value of the area. If done right, this forces house owners to rebuild their property and adjust the density if they want to remain profitable.

This accelerates gentrification I am not sure whether this is desirable.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#506

Post by rorykoehler » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:01 AM 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.

Which is illegal in Germany.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#507

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:11 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #451

ericd wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it screws over anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to win that lottery.

The lottery of having already lived there? Only in the same sense as if I have a doll, you're screwed out of having that doll.

It also nails the feet of the people who live there to the floor, because they know they can't get such a deal again if they move.

This is economically and environmentally inefficient, because it traps people in less desirable jobs due to proximity, and prevents them from moving closer to work.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#508

Post by hnick » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #269

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…

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…

It's so strange - the promise of the "information super-highway" in the 90s was that proximity wouldn't matter as much. But if anything it matters more, since every minute spent idle (e.g. travelling to meet someone) has a higher associated cost due to the opportunity cost of lost productivity. So we tend to clump and cluster.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#509

Post by jordanbeiber » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:18 AM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #504

jordanbeiber wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the black market that occurs a form of naked capitalism? Here in Stockholm a lot of the public good properties have been sold out which have left precious little for too many to contend. Prices of labour and land are so expensive that, allegedly, profit margins are not good enough. The "know somebody" bit goes for plain hard capitalism as well, but is less in effect in a society that actually focus on the socia…

I don't know, I've always liked the "if you have money, you can buy it" part of capitalism. You can make money, but you can't change the fundamentals. In a racist white society, having money will not help you if you're black. In a politicized society, having money will not help you if you don't have the right worldview, or were born into the wrong family. In my home town, having money will not help you get into a (pr…

I’m just saying that with capitalism comes politics. Always have, always will. To believe otherwise is a bit naive. Politics can be used to even things out as was done over here from the turn of the century up until, I’d say, 70-80s. The last few decades have been way to market/neoliberal policy wise, and in many ways we’re seeing the effect today.

I just think you’re a bit binary here. I come from a struggling family but have managed to buy a place for my own family in a really attractive location. The problem is that thanks to virtually no regulations on the banks for lending the whole market is inflated, both for property and land. It’s simply not a question about supply and demand - it’s “how much money can I borrow”. A study showed that roughly 25% of people owning housing i Stockholm cannot manage a lowish “normal” interest rate.

Banks love printing money for free!

Capitalism only works when properly regulated by sane policy.

Re: Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

#510

Post by pmiller2 » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:52 AM 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…

> 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.

The Bay Area has a rather efficient solution to this problem: limit the open house to 15 minutes. I wish I was kidding, but I saw multiple open houses that were literally 15 minutes long, and if you arrived 16 minutes after it started, too bad. And, unless you show up with a pre-filled application, credit report, blood sample, and your checkbook, there's no guarantee you'll even have a shot at the place.

Ok, the blood sample is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Apartment hunting in the Bay Area is not something I'd wish on anyone. I'm pretty sure Dante wrote about it in the Inferno somewhere.