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Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court

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

#101

Post by DangerousPie »

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…

I think it's the opposite. The rent cap (at least in the way it was implemented) achieved nothing to solve the problems that exist in the Berlin rental market. It led to a huge decrease in rental supply. Yes, rent may have been cheap for the few people who managed to get a place, but it was a lottery with dozens of applicants for each flat. This mismatch of supply and demand is exactly the kind of thing that would be solved through pricing in normal markets.

And rents rising as a city becomes a more desirable place to live just makes perfect sense. If you are convinced that this will happen in your city maybe now would be a great time to buy a place?

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

#102

Post by pizzapill »

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.

The factory is located somewhere in Brandenburg. There is a difference in building a factory on farmland vs. a house block in a large city.

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

#103

Post by avh02 »

kuu wrote: post #74
durnygbur wrote: post #17

Housing situation in Germany for anyone born after 1980 is so fucked.

Housing situation in Germany is so fucked Housing situation in London is so fucked Housing situation in Spain is so fucked Housing situation in Canada is so fucked .... I'm not an expert, but I see a pattern there...

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.

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

#104

Post by SiNTEx »

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…

In Prague we have a comparable housing problem to Berlin but all the politicians tend to balme AirBnB and real estate investors and they all focus on some kind of market regulation. Mostly just talking about it because they know any strict regulation would be unconstitutional. From the technical perspective the solution is simple. We should just build more houses in big projects like we did 40 years ago which will drive down the unit price and also provide all the necessary infrastructure like public transport and schools. Pretty big portion (tens of percent) of Prague's housing capacity was build during the 40 years communist era. If we could successfully build huge housing projects like Jižní Město (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji%C5%BEn%C3%AD_M%C4%9Bsto) during this awful regime whit very limited economic resources then it's surely doable now and in much higher standard. We just lack the political will to think longer then next 4 years till the next elections and to solve the problems instead of just talking about it and blaming someone else.

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

#105

Post by lqet »

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 (hidden deep in the description) was a short sentence saying that any contact made through the listing website contact form would be ignored and that a secret mail address had to be used. You had to email an application letter (preferably with photos), copies of your latest 3 salary statements, copies of your identity card, proof of your credit-worthiness ("Schufa-Auskunft" in Germany), proof that you had liability insurance, and contact information of previous landlords. This had to be mailed until a deadline the next morning. If any of this was missing, the application would be ignored.

(3) A week later, we received an email telling us that we were eligible for an appointment to visit the apartment. But we had to confirm this until the same evening by sending an SMS to a secret number.

(4) A few days later, we indeed got a date and time for visiting the apartment (via SMS). It was a 15-minute slot, but there were at least 10 other families there, and they did visits the entire day. When the agent asked us, we indicated strong interest, told him we could rent the place beginning tomorrow and left.

(5) A week later, we got the apartment (of course we now have to pay 2 rents for 3 months). When we asked him why the process was so complicated, he told us that they were only 4 people in the agency, and they didn't have the capacity to read (not answer!) > 1000 mails of people interested in the apartment. So they gradually came up with various hoops and obstacles to get this number down to something manageable (they got it down to around 50 families who indicated final interest).

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

#106

Post by mattmanser »

tonyjstark wrote: post #59
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…

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, it's in their interests to build luxury apartments. They make the most money out of those. I know little about Berlin's housing, but by any chance would there be a lot of expensive apartments being built?

Did something similar happen in German history? You'll probably find all the big landowners in Berlin and Germany lobbying very hard to make sure nothing like this ever happens.

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

#107

Post by jurip »

Asmod4n wrote: post #65
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…

They are building a massive amount of houses, but they are too expensive for the average Berlin citizen.

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 constant discussion in Helsinki, too. I think it's better to build expensive if that translates to good locations and high quality.

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

#108

Post by jariel »

vkou wrote: post #7
throw4738 wrote: post #4

It is unconstitutional because it treats people unequally. New people will not find any rentable properties, and will have to stay in hotels paying 10x more. It is just another form of xenophobia.

That is a horrible argument, because the same can be said for land ownership. Isn't it unfair that when I move somewhere, I discover that all the land in that area is already owned by someone else. Why should some old history entitle someone to exclusive ownership of any piece of land, and the ability to charge arbitrary rents for it? The fact of the matter is, first movers have all sorts of unfair advantages over la…

" I move somewhere, I discover that all the land in that area is already owned by someone else. "

Why do you think that for a moment you have a right to 'go over there' and posses land currently owned by people over there?

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

#109

Post by adrianN »

mschuster91 wrote: post #79
adrianN wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please no suburban sprawl while Berlin still has such low density compared to other cities. There are still lots of fairly central areas with single family homes. Just upzone them and let people get rich selling their land to developers.

> Please no suburban sprawl while Berlin still has such low density compared to other cities A city should be worth it to live in and provide enjoyment for the citizens, not be a glorified chicken coop for people.

That is EXACTLY what you get by building dense housing. You leave room for the important things that a city offers: services, events, jobs, greenery all in walkable or bikeable distance.

Otoh sprawl development leads to dead neighborhoods, car dependence and long commutes. It also uses space that could be left to nature instead.

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

#110

Post by flohofwoe »

throw4738 wrote: post #98
flohofwoe wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBnB is part of the problem btw. There are at least 4 fulltime AirBnB flats on my building floor (that I'm aware of). I'm assuming it's AirBnB because there's a very high "fluctuation" of new people in those flats (few days to 2 or 3 weeks). Imagine if all those AirBnBs would be available for longterm renting ;)

It is like saying refugees are part of the problem, because they are taking flats from the market. People who rent Airbnb also have a right to be in Berlin. And this policy is pushing more flats from normal market into airbnbs.

Dude, the people booking those AirBnBs are not refugees but well-paid tech-bros and party tourists. Gimme a break.
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