81–90 of 370 posts
Well that's very disappointing.
I am happy about it, since I live in Prague (capital of one of their neighbors) and the local green/left was kinda waiting for this to go through.
What about the thriving culture which exists in Berlin, and which is supported by low rent prices.
Housing situation in Germany for anyone born after 1980 is so fucked.
Full text of the court decision (German): https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid... Shorter press release (German, too): https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit... It's a classical application of the "federal law breaks state law" rule, which I think exists in the united states as well.
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Depends where you live, I guess. Gentrification is a problem, so, I agree.
It doesn't matter where you live. The jobs are in Munich, Berlin, Wolfsburg, etc.
That being said, I'd say the situation sucks especially for older folks not owning their apartments. The generally higher educated post 1980 generation has it comparatively good.
I just take issue with such general blatant statements, things are never that simple.
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…
The amount of unused space is Berlin is just so massive. Even in Friedrichstraße, which is a hype neighborhood with great amount of activity, you have hundreds of square meters completely unused, with wild plants growing around and random waste accumulating. From what I understand it is very difficult to do something with that space, either because people refuse to sell or because of bureaucratic red tape.
Keep in mind that when they say Berlin's rents are soaring, it's still comparatively cheap for large cities in Germany.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Berlin rent cap is different from rent caps elsewhere, say SF. The Berlin rent cap includes new contracts, too.
Not if you stay months in hotel or Airbnb. And that is only available option.
Important to note here is that while the Mietendeckel (rent cap) has been overturned, the Mietpreisebremse (rental price control) is still active. This is a very interesting development though.
Unfortunately, many rent contracts had a "shadow rent" clause - a higher rent they'd have to pay retroactively if the Mietpreisbremse was repealed. A lot of people are about to get a really big invoice they have to pay within 2 weeks.
Fortunately, the Mietpreisbremse is retroactive back to April 2020, so you can start the process now and get a refund later.
Your action plan should be the following:
1. Use a Mietpreisbremse calculator to check how much you are paying
2. Contact your landlord, either alone or with the help of a tenants' union (Mieterverein)
3. If that fails, use a lawyer, or a service like Wenigermiete. If it get this far, the resolution will generally take around a year. This is the average resolution time.
I have worked directly with Wenigermiete. They explained the situation to me just last week, but they expected the court to resolve the case in July, perhaps even later.
Also, for many people in Germany buying e.g. a single apartment is an investment for their later retirement. It's not all big and evil real estate companies.
Housing situation in Germany for anyone born after 1980 is so fucked.
Yup, same in my country. I was able to buy a home recently, but my method of accumulating capital enough is just about mission impossible for normal peeps. It is really unfair. Government regulation and control of housing prices is the solution.