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> 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 ar
by lqet 6y ago
> 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).
- cbqfund 6y agoAnd (2) means that privacy oriented persons no longer can get an apartment in Germany. BTW, 10% of these data collecting advertisements on the real estate websites are from identity thieves.
- corty 6y agoActually what they are doing and asking for is illegal. Asking for credit scores, proof of employment and sensitive stuff like that is only legal when an offer to rent is actually being made to that candidate. Just having everybody send in everything is common, but should never happen. However, privacy watchdogs are somewhat toothless and future renters put up with it because they have no other choice.
- aeternum 6y agoThis behavior is often due to the difficulty of evicting a tenant. In Berlin, the process can take 3-9 months and can be easily contested. There's no easy solution. Everyone puts the blame on the landlord saying they should be careful who they rent to, but that's difficult to do without doing some kind of background check on tenants and can also lead to discrimination.
- durnygbur 6y agoI cannot wait for a massive data leak containg apartment application documents, especially from high demand locations like Munich or Berlin. People simply send it all over the place and they contain everything. It would knacker out many people in various ways.
- killtimeatwork 6y agoI'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?
- lqet 6y ago> 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.
- AlchemistCamp 6y agoA market response to supply and demand is illegal? What law would do that if not a rent cap?
- chillyistkult 6y ago§ 291 StGB Wucher
- djbebs 6y agoRent control prevents from increasing by more than a set amount every year. Theoretically you can wait for decades raising the rent every year
- cmoser 6y agoThere are multiple kinds of rent caps. One is the maximum annual raise for existing tenants. Another one is vague and based on the "Mietspiegel", which lists appropriate rents according to quality and location. If the rent exceeds this by too much, you can sue for "Mietwucher" (rent usury).
- lqet 6y ago§556d, 1 of the German civil code. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__556d.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__556d.html It's illegal here to demand a rent more than 10% higher than the "ortsübliche Vergleichsmiete", which is approximately the local rent averaged over the last 6 years (exactly defined in §558) More generally, you cannot simply ask for astronomical prices for anything in Germany just because you know that people are in a position where they have to pay them, that's "Wucher" (racketeering) and against public decency, which is generally illegal according to §138. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__138.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__138.html
- pitkali 6y agoI think I prefer the Swedish queues.