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Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

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Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#531

Post by junon »

el_nahual wrote: post #152

An issue that many commenters here are missing is that the problem with rent control will manifest more sharply in the future. Sure, the impact today seems relatively equitable: a windfall for people that rent today coupled with a small drop in supply. But fast forward 10 or 20 years and the situation looks far worse: everyone who got a windfall today is still living in the same apartment, whereas anyone trying to en…

I live in Berlin. What you're describing in "10 or 20 years" is already the case. That's why these actions are being taken now.

I waited 6 months for an apartment here when I first moved. Pretty much everyone who doesn't want to spend insane prices on a unit has to.

And even then, I'm still paying 500-600 more than I should be. It's insanity.

The main problem is that there are immigrants (primarily from one country in particular, but that's less important) coming in and buying up all of the "houses" here (note that "House" in Berlin means a large apartment-complex-like house, not a single American Style, white picket fence house) and then increasing the prices slightly.

I'm not anti-immigration, clearly, but there are still concrete economic effects that haven't been solved yet. I don't think anyone knows what these measures will lead to, but at least it's something.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#532

Post by rayiner »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #459
exporectomy wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imo we should just solve this issue once and for all by supplying government housing to anyone at a low price, but there seems to be little political will for that. Where would that end? If you always build more to accommodate any poor or homeless people, they'll come from other cities to enjoy the cheap housing.

This is a national problem requiring a federal solution. Anything less will be exploited by desperate people. Don't hate the poor players. Hate the rich exploiting them for profit.

No, it’s the definition of a local problem. Housing where I live is affordable. I sure as hell don’t want voters in San Francisco mucking with my housing policy through a federal solution to solve their own self-inflicted problems. It’s a recipe for exporting insane SF/NYC housing policies to the rest of the country.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#533

Post by mjevans »

tehjoker wrote: post #519
mjevans wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a suggestion for a process... Pick a duration upon which to re-evaluate the value of property. Distribute this roughly evenly over all the property everywhere so that it isn't all at once. When a property's up for evaluation, offer it for 'sale' via a distributed dutch auction as part of a block with similar properties in the same jurisdiction (roughly, zipcodes, or maybe divided up should work). The block is bid…

Why are we randomly forcing residents to leave? Why don't we just take the available housing stock and divide it between old and new residents in a rational manner? Should an individual or family be kicked to the curb just because someone has a preference for living somewhere? What if they could prove a necessity? There's a lot to be said for knowing that once you pick a place to live you can depend on it being there…

They don't have to accept the deals, they'd have the __option__ and I'm trying to make it easier for them to take the highest bidding option so that someone knows they have the best deal. The highest bid from among bids in their area.

This is to ensure a __fair evaluation__ of a property's value on a real market, rather than some random assessor's opinion.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#534

Post by rayiner »

donarb wrote: post #389
latchkey wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 1994/5 I wanted to move to Berkeley. I had a very hard time finding a place. I looked at so many attics turned into bedrooms and other crappy places. Eventually, I found an ideal (relatively) place and there was a good 50+ people looking at the same apartment during a showing... I walked up to the landlord (who was a lawyer in his day job) and said... "I know you can't pick favorites, but I have a good salary…

Interesting that it took an essay contest to break the tie. Seattle now has an ordinance that they must rent to the first applicant who qualifies. This is to prevent discrimination against minorities.

> Seattle now has an ordinance that they must rent to the first applicant who qualifies. This is to prevent discrimination against minorities.

Isn’t it already illegal to discriminate against minorities in renting housing?

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#535

Post by asdff »

rayiner wrote: post #529
asdff wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would that person in that rent controlled apartment be otherwise? Chances are, on the street. Moving requires upfront capital. It requires promise of a job at the other end. If you are in a high cost of living area like NYC or CA, you might have to quit your job if you want to find a more affordable apartment; there might be absolutely nothing affordable within a three hour drive of your job of cleaning up a do…

> Where would that person in that rent controlled apartment be otherwise? Or, you know, New Jersey. Or some suburb. The same place younger people have to go because rent control destroyed the housing market in the city.

And that will work fine for 1 person or 10 people but not 100 people or the 1000 in that rent controlled building in NYC, because you don't have a Manhattan's worth of jobs for working people in some suburb in New Jersey. Sure, some people can afford the car, the insurance, the gas, the parking, the hours a day commuting, but for those that can't, they end up on the street. In some areas, like in CA, you really don't save very much at all going out to the suburbs. A house like this one (1) would be literally 1/10th the price if not less somewhere else, but such is the housing market for some metropolitan areas in the US these days.

1. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/20722-Pioneer-Blvd-Lakewo...

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#536

Post by skedaddle »

asdff wrote: post #528
el_nahual wrote: post #152

An issue that many commenters here are missing is that the problem with rent control will manifest more sharply in the future. Sure, the impact today seems relatively equitable: a windfall for people that rent today coupled with a small drop in supply. But fast forward 10 or 20 years and the situation looks far worse: everyone who got a windfall today is still living in the same apartment, whereas anyone trying to en…

Where would that person in that rent controlled apartment be otherwise? Chances are, on the street. Moving requires upfront capital. It requires promise of a job at the other end. If you are in a high cost of living area like NYC or CA, you might have to quit your job if you want to find a more affordable apartment; there might be absolutely nothing affordable within a three hour drive of your job of cleaning up a do…

Everyone gets rent control, whether they'd be "on the street" otherwise or not. My brother lived in SF and drove down the peninsula to Google (an hours long commute) while living in a rent controlled apartment for 10+ years while rent was shooting through the roof. He's not the only one. There's obviously a lot of people living on the street in sf -- rent control has failed to stop that.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#537

Post by ProfessorLayton »

sudosysgen wrote: post #472
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody was talking about nationwide averages, because the housing crunch is local, not an average of what's going on throughout the country. Wages in [U.S.] metropolitan areas have increased much more than what was referenced in your source [1], while housing in many of those areas has not kept up with that growth. Just look at the wage growth at top metros, many of which have grown a lot recently, but have failed to…

Are we reading the same study? Because the link you just posted indicated that US Metro wages grew 1% faster than the average over a 10 year span. As far as I understand then, your entire argument is unfounded and contrary to the data. FYI, the US urbanization rate is 86.4%.

No, throughout this entire thread I have been specific about:

- Cities/metros, not the entire US.

- I was also specific about cities/metros that are experiencing a housing crisis, and not making an argument that all metros are in a housing crisis.

- I then cited my sources, and once again was specific about wage growth in top metros and how many have failed to grow their housing supply along with wages. That 86% of the U.S. is urbanized and growing 1% faster than average is not the issue here, it's that where growth is happening, supply is not keeping up.

- I then argued that restrictive policies are constraining supply. In the case of this article pertaining to Berlin, it's rent control. Metros in the U.S. with supply constrains (Like the SF Bay) also use rent control and limit supply.

Despite being specific, you keep conflating my arguments, or steering away from my core argument: Constrained housing supply is not keeping up with demand. I'm also arguing that it isn't impossible to build enough supply to keep up with demand.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#538

Post by rayiner »

asdff wrote: post #535
rayiner wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where would that person in that rent controlled apartment be otherwise? Or, you know, New Jersey. Or some suburb. The same place younger people have to go because rent control destroyed the housing market in the city.

And that will work fine for 1 person or 10 people but not 100 people or the 1000 in that rent controlled building in NYC, because you don't have a Manhattan's worth of jobs for working people in some suburb in New Jersey. Sure, some people can afford the car, the insurance, the gas, the parking, the hours a day commuting, but for those that can't, they end up on the street. In some areas, like in CA, you really don't…

> And that will work fine for 1 person or 10 people but not 100 people or the 1000 in that rent controlled building in NYC, because you don't have a Manhattan's worth of jobs for working people in some suburb in New Jersey. Sure, some people can afford the car, the insurance, the gas, the parking, the hours a day commuting, but for those that can't, they end up on the street.

You’ve got it backwards. There’s not enough jobs in Manhattan for all the people who want to live there. The unemployment rate in NYC this time two years ago (before pandemic) was 4.2%. In Iowa it was 2.7%. In December 2020 NYC unemployment was over 11%. In the rest of NY it was 5.9%. In Iowa it was 3.1%.

Cities like NYC are a Mecca for yuppie jobs. For the most part, they are shitty places for normal people to find work.

> In some areas, like in CA, you really don't save very much at all going out to the suburbs.

That’s because California is the epicenter of bad ideas about housing policy: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-broughel-hamilto.... I live an hour outside DC and you can buy a 3BR family home for 3x median family income in the county. In CA it’s like 7-8x even in the suburbs.

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#539

Post by porb121 »

skohan wrote: post #463
el_nahual wrote: post #152

An issue that many commenters here are missing is that the problem with rent control will manifest more sharply in the future. Sure, the impact today seems relatively equitable: a windfall for people that rent today coupled with a small drop in supply. But fast forward 10 or 20 years and the situation looks far worse: everyone who got a windfall today is still living in the same apartment, whereas anyone trying to en…

The thing is, what's the alternative? I live in Berlin, and my neighbours are in their 70's. Should they be forced to find a new flat way outside the city because the rent triples over the course of a few years so young tech workers relocating from London can have a place in the cool part of town? The rental market is different in Germany than it is in other countries: less people own their homes, and getting a housi…

> Should they be forced to find a new flat way outside the city because the rent triples over the course of a few years so young tech workers relocating from London can have a place in the cool part of town?

yes

why should they get to stay in berlin and have their housing subsidized?

Re: Rent controls have split housing in Berlin into two distinct markets

#540

Post by brutusborn »

sudosysgen wrote: post #275
awillen wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You create an insane level amount of supply for homeownership on this market. An absolutely insane level." You're completely ignoring the fact that homeownership, even if prices aren't incredibly high, requires a large down payment that many people don't have, which is why they rent. Those people still can't afford to buy and are pushed out, and they're the ones you're supposed to be helping. "If somehow millions of…

Public housing is neither incredibly expensive nor politically difficult as long as you have a competent government and laws that don't artificially make it more expensive (see: US). The economics are very simple. The price of housing if it's not profitable to rent and even less profitable to hold will drop until occupancy is high. Those that can't put down a down payment will rent, the others will buy. If not, the p…

Where abouts does it work currently and do you have any data to support this? I'm genuinely curious.

Also don't forget about renters keeping tennancies vacant temporarily, to avoid losing their locked in rent control rate. I have heard many stories of affluent people keeping a "cheap" apartment in New York vacant for years on end.

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