I don't know much about housing in Berlin, but I think the story is that in the time after the Berlin wall was torn down, late 80s, the city really needed money

I don't know much about housing in Berlin, but I think the story is that in the time after the Berlin wall was torn down, late 80s, the city really needed money. As a result, they sold hundreds of thousands of publicly-owned apartments to these private companies in the 90s and 00s for almost nothing.[0][1] Now those apartments are worth a lot more, and people are mad because housing is not affordable to many. Hence you often hear demands for dispossession. The whole story is probably a lot more complicated though, idk. [0] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nach-der-privatisierung-was-aus-den-landeseigenen-wohnungen-wurde/24025260-all.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nach-der-privatisierung-w... [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/immobilien/neubau-in-berlin-als-das-tafelsilber-verkauft-wurde/13019974-2.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/immobilien/neubau-in-... edit: if you read [1] for example, the private companies bought 65000 apartments for 400 million Euro. Now the city bought back 14750 apts for 2.46 billion Euro. Considering that these houses probably have barely been renovated if at all, the quality probably dropped significantly.