Not sure how it is in Germany, but in my country (UK) the housing problem seems to be completely artificial. If you are an individual you cannot just buy land a

Not sure how it is in Germany, but in my country (UK) the housing problem seems to be completely artificial. If you are an individual you cannot just buy land and buy a house - it is impossible to go through all the red tape and even if you do, local council for reasons known to them will unlikely to approve. So the market is really in hands of a couple of huge development companies who mostly build shoeboxes that they call homes and don't build enough so that there is space for everyone and if they do it's too expensive for anyone anyway. These flats are more like a storage of value for foreign rich people. I think this is because those millionaires can corrupt any politician and get their way, whereas average citizen cannot do anything.