4 ms·

Who owns most of the homes then ? Institutional investors ?

by pyb 10y ago

adrianratnapala 10y ago
The home ownership percentage is still 43%, so not that low. Landlords seem to be the usual mix of older, upper-middle proffessionals that you see in other countries. It's just a bit more concentrated. Also there are many houses which have two or three appartments. The owner will live in one appartment, and either have a different generation of their family in the other ones, or else rent it for money.
- ygra 10y ago
  In my home city (Rostock) a large portion of flats are owned by a single, large-ish company. A stark difference to now (Tübingen) where most flats are owned by individuals. Personally it's much easier to handle contractual stuff (which renting always entails) with a company instead of a person. At least landlords here tend to have trouble distinguishing contractual interactions (reducing rent resulting from unfixed issues, complaints about things to be fixed, etc.) and dealing with them as a person. With the landlord living just two streets away they're sometimes inclined to take things personal and show up on your doorstep.
  - freeflight 10y ago
    >With the landlord living just two streets away they're sometimes inclined to take things personal and show up on your doorstep. Or worse: They will try to fix/repair things themselves, instead of hiring an actual professional for the job. My landlord, a brain surgeon, won't hire anybody for anything. Instead, he will come over himself and try to fix things he clearly has no clue about. Last time he cut himself trying to fix the parquet floor, ended up bleeding all over the place. I had to repaint some of the walls and the floor is still in a shoddy state.
  - pluma 10y ago
    I live in two places in Germany: a city of one million people and a small town of 16,000. In the city the apartment I live in as well as most buildings nearby are owned by a stock company that owns 42,000 apartments and is mostly (88%) owned by the city. In the town the apartment is part of a building owned by an elderly couple living a few blocks away. Compared with the company, dealing with the private landlord is a hassle. He's not very mobile, so every interaction basically takes place in his living room. He's also of course not doing this full-time, so he's not always up to date on all legal aspects or all of the necessary paperwork. It's nice to see private individuals owning land and houses in principle, but from a pragmatic point of view the company is far easier to deal with. Their scale allows them to have offices with actual business hours and problems can be handled as routine whereas with an individual every little thing is of course special. Because the company is mostly owned by the city, they also invest in long-term projects and community building -- which a private individual naturally can't do as easily. So far I haven't had any problems with either of the two, but I'm fairly certain that having an actual conflict with the private couple would be a far greater issue than taking the company to court -- not in the least because in a small town everybody would hear about it and because they're private individuals it would be seen as personal.
kuschku 10y ago
Insurances, pension funds, and coops, all of whom want a long-term profit and are willing to invest in the buildings to allow for that to happen.
dejv 10y ago
Not sure if this is case in Germany, but in many european countries there are huge property holdings owned by cities or goverment. In my case (Brno, Czech rep.) the city is by far largest landlord, holding double digits of available housing. Most of those places have very low rent, but it is hard to get the place.
usrusr 10y ago
Your typical landlord is someone who bought a unit or two as a personal investment, or who was lucky enough having ancestors who did so (in this case it might have grown into a full time commercial operation through decades of reinvestment). New developments, even quite large ones, tend to target this kind of investor because a big institutional one would be much more capable of telling a good investment from a bad one. This does not even matter so much to the small, private investor, because he mostly uses it to hedge against a collapse of the financial system, something that indirect investment in real estate cannot provide. An exception are (formerly) communal companies, companies that have been spun out of "company town" arrangements and of course those that operate formerly "people's owned" buildings in the east. But all those are not really into expanding. Edit: and one thing I forgot: some units are actually owned by renters. Liking the solidity of a real estate investment and liking the flexibility of living in a rented property that you can easily swap for a different one are not mutually exclusive. For example it ie not terribly uncommon for occupant owners who need to move or scale up or down to keep their property and rent both ways (e.g. when they know that their new demand is not permanent or when their new demand does not match their investment volume).

Who owns most of the homes then ? Institutional investors ?

by pyb 10y ago

Who owns most of the homes then ? Institutional investors ?

The home ownership percentage is still 43%, so not that low. Landlords seem to be the usual mix of older, upper-middle proffessionals that you see in other countries. It's just a bit more concentrated. Also there are many houses which have two or three appartments. The owner will live in one appartment, and either have a different generation of their family in the other ones, or else rent it for money.

ygra 10y ago
In my home city (Rostock) a large portion of flats are owned by a single, large-ish company. A stark difference to now (Tübingen) where most flats are owned by individuals. Personally it's much easier to handle contractual stuff (which renting always entails) with a company instead of a person. At least landlords here tend to have trouble distinguishing contractual interactions (reducing rent resulting from unfixed issues, complaints about things to be fixed, etc.) and dealing with them as a person. With the landlord living just two streets away they're sometimes inclined to take things personal and show up on your doorstep.
- freeflight 10y ago
  >With the landlord living just two streets away they're sometimes inclined to take things personal and show up on your doorstep. Or worse: They will try to fix/repair things themselves, instead of hiring an actual professional for the job. My landlord, a brain surgeon, won't hire anybody for anything. Instead, he will come over himself and try to fix things he clearly has no clue about. Last time he cut himself trying to fix the parquet floor, ended up bleeding all over the place. I had to repaint some of the walls and the floor is still in a shoddy state.
- pluma 10y ago
  I live in two places in Germany: a city of one million people and a small town of 16,000. In the city the apartment I live in as well as most buildings nearby are owned by a stock company that owns 42,000 apartments and is mostly (88%) owned by the city. In the town the apartment is part of a building owned by an elderly couple living a few blocks away. Compared with the company, dealing with the private landlord is a hassle. He's not very mobile, so every interaction basically takes place in his living room. He's also of course not doing this full-time, so he's not always up to date on all legal aspects or all of the necessary paperwork. It's nice to see private individuals owning land and houses in principle, but from a pragmatic point of view the company is far easier to deal with. Their scale allows them to have offices with actual business hours and problems can be handled as routine whereas with an individual every little thing is of course special. Because the company is mostly owned by the city, they also invest in long-term projects and community building -- which a private individual naturally can't do as easily. So far I haven't had any problems with either of the two, but I'm fairly certain that having an actual conflict with the private couple would be a far greater issue than taking the company to court -- not in the least because in a small town everybody would hear about it and because they're private individuals it would be seen as personal.

kuschku 10y ago

Insurances, pension funds, and coops, all of whom want a long-term profit and are willing to invest in the buildings to allow for that to happen.

dejv 10y ago

Not sure if this is case in Germany, but in many european countries there are huge property holdings owned by cities or goverment. In my case (Brno, Czech rep.) the city is by far largest landlord, holding double digits of available housing. Most of those places have very low rent, but it is hard to get the place.

usrusr 10y ago

Your typical landlord is someone who bought a unit or two as a personal investment, or who was lucky enough having ancestors who did so (in this case it might have grown into a full time commercial operation through decades of reinvestment). New developments, even quite large ones, tend to target this kind of investor because a big institutional one would be much more capable of telling a good investment from a bad one. This does not even matter so much to the small, private investor, because he mostly uses it to hedge against a collapse of the financial system, something that indirect investment in real estate cannot provide. An exception are (formerly) communal companies, companies that have been spun out of "company town" arrangements and of course those that operate formerly "people's owned" buildings in the east. But all those are not really into expanding. Edit: and one thing I forgot: some units are actually owned by renters. Liking the solidity of a real estate investment and liking the flexibility of living in a rented property that you can easily swap for a different one are not mutually exclusive. For example it ie not terribly uncommon for occupant owners who need to move or scale up or down to keep their property and rent both ways (e.g. when they know that their new demand is not permanent or when their new demand does not match their investment volume).