How things have changed. I remember going to Berlin around 15 years ago and was surprised how cheap the property was there. At the time it was a city where th

How things have changed. I remember going to Berlin around 15 years ago and was surprised how cheap the property was there. At the time it was a city where the population wasn't growing for a very long time, but had good infrastructure and more supply and demand especially to the East. Large apartments in established neighbourhoods were the norm. There was also not much in the way of jobs going for working in tech, or else I would probably have moved there as soon as I landed an opportunity to do so. The tech jobs and the young talent found each other there and the rest is history and this spike in demand keeps luring in more property speculators. It's a difficult situation to fix, the real fix here is a policy to increase housing supply dramatically. Unfortunately the financial incentives against this is very strong, because a critical mass of people have an interest in even higher prices. Putting controls on the trade of existing properties (e.g. making mortgages less accessible) or taxing landlords higher results in a shortage of rental properties and makes the prices rise even further. Rent control to try curb this leads to further shortages.