"limiting profits is bad" says the worlds biggest pro-capital megaphone while referencing a company that usually does paid pro-business questionnaires.
"As expected, rents in Berlin’s regulated market plummeted in relative terms." and "Newly built apartments have therefore become even more unaffordable for most people."
They are not directly lying, but I'd count this as dishonesty by omission. Newly built apartments in Berlin's city center were already impossible to finance for most people before the regulation started. So their complaint is like saying "most people cannot afford a home in Pacific Heights" which is true, but irrelevant to the regulation.
"There was also an acceleration of apartments going up for sale, as landlords tried to cash out of their now less profitable investments." You know, for the families trying to live there, that is amazing news!
"the landlord tends to sell the unit rather than re-let it" Wasn't that the goal of the regulation, to increase home ownership by those living there?
"The biggest question is whether this episode of left-wing populism has damaged confidence in Berlin’s real-estate market permanently. If investors fear that local property rights will be put at risk in every election, they might stop building houses in the city at all." Oh wow. I'd wager that 99% of those living in Berlin won't mind if international investment corporations build their overly shiny and overpriced apartments somewhere else.
And lastly, this article appears to not mention one critical thing about Berlin at all, which is "Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft". Regular families joining a non-profit to construct apartment buildings for their own use together. One of the goals of this regulation was to boost that, and scaring away for-profit investors might just be the way to make space for non-profit investments.
I don't blame Bloomberg and Ifo Institute for delivering what their customer base wants to read. But it would be foolish to treat this as objective reporting.