Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 370 posts

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#141

Post by gjulianm »

Asdrubalini wrote: post #118
southerntofu wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why build more? There's plenty of abandoned/empty housing everywhere in big cities? Unfortunately i don't speak german so i can't give you stats about Berlin, but in Paris alone it's >200 000 empty housing units according to official statistics. Building more is definitely the wrong solution to housing. Just remove the capitalist vampire landlords making a profit on basic human needs, and let everybody enjoy free hou…

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Idealizing...

People can't live without housing so demand is not elastic. Plus the housing market is special regarding spatial location. Applying regular market rules as if the housing market behaved the same as, say, the screwdrivers market, does not make sense at all.

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#142

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

sabjut wrote: post #80
that_guy_iain wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're building housing all the time. There are 3-4 housing blocks being build near me. One office building being built. Everyone keeps acting like they can just build new housing over night. To be fair, construction work in Berlin is super slow.

Well in recent months the Tesla Giga Berlin factory has shown just how fast construction can take place if the people in power actually want it to happen. Building new housing units in the city slows the increase in value of existing real estate, which is why property owners are not rushing to allow the construction of new structures. Lobbyism is a powerful force in real estate.

This is not the greatest example. There is still no final permit for the whole thing, only temporary ones. It is embarrassing and a textbook case of pointless German bureaucracy, misguided environmentalism and NIMBYism.

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#143

Post by varispeed »

Not sure how it is in Germany, but in my country (UK) the housing problem seems to be completely artificial. If you are an individual you cannot just buy land and buy a house - it is impossible to go through all the red tape and even if you do, local council for reasons known to them will unlikely to approve. So the market is really in hands of a couple of huge development companies who mostly build shoeboxes that they call homes and don't build enough so that there is space for everyone and if they do it's too expensive for anyone anyway. These flats are more like a storage of value for foreign rich people. I think this is because those millionaires can corrupt any politician and get their way, whereas average citizen cannot do anything.

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#144

Post by radu_floricica »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #78

This is a catastrophe and very disappointing. Here is a little personal anecdote: I used to live in the center of Berlin Mitte when I was a student, had rented a Penthouse apartment for 450 Euro/mo incl. additional costs (but without water, gas, electricity). It was affordable. Then a Bavarian multimillionaire bought the house from the original owners. I was already abroad most of the time, so I didn't experience the…

This reminds me of the dispute on liberalizing parking space prices. An uber driver last week was super against it, saying it's not fair. His main argument? He has a price protected one. Meanwhile I do the 10 minute parking dance every evening, while going past paid, reserved and unused parking spots. (Bucharest btw, and they'll likely stay this way)

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#145

Post by nicbou »

Without judging the outcome, here are a few things HN readers might not be aware of:

- The supply of rental apartments dropped by 40-60% after the Mietendeckel came in effect. It became even harder to find an apartment in Berlin. Landlords were holding their breaths.

- The supply of housing for sale also dwindled. If I'm not mistaken, sellers were waiting for the court judgement to rent/sell.

- The Mietendeckel also concerned furnished apartments, although it was largely ignored by landlords on short term furnished flat platforms like Wunderflats. The platforms turned a blind eye.

- I know many people who got significant reductions, sometimes exceeding 20%.

- In most cases, the new rent contracts with reduced rents had a shadow rent clause in case the Mietendeckel got repealed. Many people will have to pay the difference back within 14 days.

- The Mietpreisbremse, and earlier rent control measure, is still in effect. It does not include the rent freeze, but it does include significant rent reductions. Unfortunately, it's not automatic (no threat of a fine), and often needs to be enforced in court. The court judgement is retroactive to April 2020.

This is all I know/remember.

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#146

Post by gjulianm »

pharmakom wrote: post #119
southerntofu wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why build more? There's plenty of abandoned/empty housing everywhere in big cities? Unfortunately i don't speak german so i can't give you stats about Berlin, but in Paris alone it's >200 000 empty housing units according to official statistics. Building more is definitely the wrong solution to housing. Just remove the capitalist vampire landlords making a profit on basic human needs, and let everybody enjoy free hou…

How is it that rents are so high and yet there are empty housing units? Don’t landlords want the money?

They might think it's more profitable to wait so that they can sell or rent the unit later at a higher price.

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#148

Post by killtimeatwork »

lqet wrote: post #105
adrianN wrote: post #11

I wish Berlin would just build more housing instead. For example when I cross the street there is a supermarket. It's a single story building with a huge parking lot around it. Why not make it a multistory building with apartments on top of the supermarket and skip the parking space or put it underground? Why does the city give out building permits for such buildings? There could easily be room for thirty families on…

> Why not make it a multistory building with apartments on top of the supermarket and skip the parking space or put it underground? That's exactly what they are doing at a few places in my city (also with a massive housing problem). We recently found a new apartment here, the process was as follows: (1) We found the apartment online. It was online for exactly 6 hours, listed by an estate agent. (2) Inside the listing…

I'm always baffled by stories like this. If there's indeed so much interest in an apartment, why not increase the price to the point where 90% of contenders lose interest? The owner must have been in a huge hurry, or doesn't care about money?

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#149

Post by nabla9 »

It's better that everything is explicit.

* If you want cheaper rents: build more housing.

* If you want more housing, zone more housing.

* If you want to keep "local vibrant culture" alive. Give direct cash transfers from the government. Don't try to sneak subsidy trough private housing.

* If local government needs more money, tax property.

Urban economics has real trickle down effect: It does not matter if you build apartments for the rich or poor, everyone gets affordable housing if you just keep building enough apartments.

Re: Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

#150

Post by luckylion »

mattmanser wrote: post #106
tonyjstark wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. The city itself should build as many cheap rental apartments as possible, also in more higher-priced areas to keep the pricing there in check. Building more housing is the only way out of this soaring pricing. EDIT: not only rental apartments of course but more housing in general. A second step would be, to make sure that rental housing is used for that instead of AirBNB or any other investment. It would a…

So here in the UK, our councils used to build social housing. 300,000 per year. And then Thatcher made it illegal and said privately owned housing associations would fill the gap. In the 30 years since then, the most they've ever managed is 30,000. It's not in private landowner's interest to build cheap social housing. It reduces rents, it suppresses property values. So they don't get built. If they do build anything…

Berlin and other cities sold off their public housing to pay for their budget deficits. Generally, there are housing cooperatives in Germany, and they have significant amounts of apartments. Not close to being as big as the largest private companies, but 3000-5000 apartments aren't rare. You become a member and buy shares, and their purpose is to provide housing to their members, they're very affordable and all around pretty great (not as profit-oriented as the private companies, not as bureaucratic as the public stuff).

I'd prefer those over public housing very much because only with them, the interests between the renter and the landlord are aligned, and they're not part of the state and can therefore not be used (or sold) by political decisions.

Post reply on HN