Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by raverbashing » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

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…

The dichotomy between "cheap housing" and luxury housing needs to end.

(I might be wrong but) if I had to bet why councils could build more places it's that they would have a streamlined approval process with councils (denying a social housing project would look bad) while the private developers have to follow the mood of the deparments and several "appeals" and "NIMBYs" (same as in the US today)

But a new "luxury apt" opens a place in a slightly cheaper property.

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

#172

Post by killtimeatwork » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

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…

At least in Warsaw, there are various kinds of developers. Some specialize in luxury housing, while others cater to the mass market, with tall building of small-ish flats, hundreds of units per flat, built on cheaper land further away from the city center. There were entire districts built by such developers in the past 20+ years. Perhaps the key to this is relatively low regulation in Poland, which sadly results in somewhat chaotic urbanism and a lot of missed opportunities for building a city that's nice to live in, but also allows for shit to get done.

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

#173

Post by jurip » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

phaer wrote: post #155

jurip wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the details of the Berlin situation, but as long as someone lives in those new apartments (who would have lived in Berlin anyway), it helps with the housing shortage and prices. Someone moves to the new, most expensive apartment in the city, someone else moves to their now vacant slightly less expensive apartment, etc. At some point in the chain that means there's cheaper housing available. This is a con…

That's true, but your premises are wrong for most of the luxury real estate market in European cities (and likely elsewhere). Most buyers are investors in one way or another and for them it's good enough if they believe that prices will continue to rise.

But does it matter who owns the place as long as someone lives there? I mean I assume that the investors are renting them out. If not, surely they're losing out on a very nice income stream, and it's hard to believe it's all that popular. There are probably some empty apartments — that's a requirement for a working housing market, given that people need empty places to move into — but the proportion of empty investment vehicles in a city as large as Berlin can't be that large.

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

#174

Post by ceilingcorner » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

DangerousPie wrote: post #114

ceilingcorner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant unless compared to local salaries, which as far as I know, are still lower than the rest of German cities.

If salaries were so bad, people would stop moving to Berlin and rents would fall. The fact that housing is still under such high demand shows that Berlin is clearly still a desirable place to live.

I don’t think salary is the only or even primary reason people move to Berlin.

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

#175

Post by gjulianm » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

EdwinLarkin wrote: post #160

gjulianm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In 99% cases it's the government/zoning rules that prevent increasing the supply of housing not private investors not wanting to build enough.

And in many cases it's private investors buying houses for speculation (either by increasing rent or by using them for AirBnBs) the ones that drive prices up, not an increase of supply.

In any case, my point is that applying market rules to housing does not make sense, it's not a competitive market at all and never can be.

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

#176

Post by AlchemistCamp » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

lqet wrote: post #156

killtimeatwork wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> why not increase the price to the point where 90% of contenders lose interest Because that's illegal, even without the rent cap in Berlin.

A market response to supply and demand is illegal? What law would do that if not a rent cap?

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

#177

Post by southerntofu » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

artwr wrote: post #127

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…

Just curious, would you happen to have a reference for Paris handy?

You can find an article on paris.fr website claiming 17% empty housing in Paris (and rising) in 2019 : https://www.paris.fr/pages/le-saviez-vous-17-des-logements-p...

So my bad for giving a wrong number the >1 million is in fact 3 millions for the whole of France (~8%). For Paris it's "only" ~240000 (according to 2019 paris.fr numbers) which is on the scale of one empty apartment in the heart of Paris for every mishoused person ("sans domicile fixe") in the whole of France, according to official statistics (which may be too optimistic on the number of mishoused people).

https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3572856

According to INSEE (official statistics), between 1990 and 2015, population has grown 0.4%, housing units have grown 1%, while abandoned housing units grew 2.8%. Now may be a good time to say that secondary housing (vacation houses for the privileged elite that can afford it) is NOT abandoned housing according to these stats.

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

#178

Post by avh02 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #122

avh02 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live in Dubai - i got there at almost peak rent/real estate... I look at rents now, and they're just under half what i was paying. Sometimes tides turn the other way too.

I would prefer location where my chance to find female mate is greater than 0, and where I will not be on the hook for saying, writing, or doing something trivial and then persecuted under pretext of consuming alcohol.

That's a completely different story - and there are obviously many reasons I left Dubai.

But Dubai is not _entirely_ that repressed (believe it or not, you may date someone. (but technically, no sex outside marriage - didn't know anyone caught on that one though)). There were many caveats and "watch outs" for sure - the _general_ rule was "don't be a stupid drunk", "don't publicly insult anyone", "no overt PDA in public" and you were fine. Obviously that's not to everyone's taste and wasn't always uniformly applied.

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

#179

Post by throwaway85858 » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #145

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…

- the amount of apartments for sale increased but so did the prices.

- furnished aparthotels are something special and they got an exception from the state (because some providers are state owned)

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

#180

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

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?

[deleted]