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Far-left party wins Berlin election, pledging to nationalise housing

expedition32 5d ago
After WW2 all European countries had massive housing shortages. It was not capitalism that solved it but heavy government involvement. In a span a few decades millions of people were re-housed. The free market is remarkably terrible at pumping out houses fast.
- ChickeNES 5d ago
  Yet in the US, it was developers following the Levittown model that resulted in tons and tons of single family homes, so I fail to see how the free market is terrible at "pumping out houses fast"?
  - gambiting 5d ago
    Well, think whether the market conditions that lead to it could be recreated today, and then you'll see how the free market fails to deliver a lot of housing fast. Developers have long ago realized it's better for them to pump out fewer houses with more profit margin slower, than lots of houses with little profit margins. They get a planning permission on a giant site for a 1000 houses but only build 50 a year to not disrupt the high prices they can charge for each unit. That's free market for you right now.
    - ChickeNES 5d ago
      This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of how the housing market works, and totally ignores apartments/midrises/highrises. The problem with housing in the US lies with overregulation (mostly in the form of zoning). I know this well, as someone who has attended numerous planning meetings in Chicago, I have seen many buildings reduced in unit count solely due to NIMBYs (mostly retired people, as these meetings are often during the day or the immediately 5-7pm time when many people are still commuting home from work).
      - gambiting 5d ago
        No idea about the US, but that is indeed how it happens on this side of the pond - developers rarely build mid or high rises, it's all single family homes.
      - stockresearcher 5d ago
        As far as big cities go, Chicago is a very easy city to build in. However, as you surely know, it follows an informal system called Aldermanic Prerogative, which gives a lot of influence to the alderman in charge of each ward. If the NIMBYs in your local area have excessive sway, it’s because your local alderman depends on them. In my old neighborhood, if a developer wanted to build a high rise with 300 apartments, they’d make a proposal for 350 apartments, have a few public meetings, let people yell at them for a couple hours, and make a “concession” of reducing the project to 300 apartments. Then everyone goes home happy. Everyone knew that was the game, except perhaps a few obtuse NIMBYs that thought they were accomplishing something. In the mile or two south of Roosevelt Rd, there are 5000-10000 permitted apartments/condos, just waiting for some developer to get a loan and pull permits to start construction. No public meetings needed. They could start building next week.
  - mschild 5d ago
    The market is not terrible pumping out houses fast, but the current market conditions mean that said houses/apartments are not affordable for most people. The average rent in Berlin (and other German cities) is not very high but that's because a lot of flats still run on a very old contract. If you're moving to Berlin, finding an apartment is incredibly difficult, even if you're willing to spend a lot of money. My grandmother lives by herself in a 90sqm flat in a really nice area and pays 400 Euros a month. In the last 10 years she tried to find a smaller flat (30-40 sqm) for herself but the cheapest she could find was 750. So she stays where she is and just doesn't use 2 of the rooms she has except for storage. In the meantime, a friend of mine moved to Berlin and couldn't find a decent 60sqm flat for less than 1400 Euros. The only way to get those affordable rents is either knowing someone who is moving out or getting super lucky by finding and getting it through a public ad. Massenbesichtigung (mass viewings) are not uncommon. The agent will publish a public timeslot and literally hundreds of people lined around the block will show up to view a single flat.
    - tirant 5d ago
      The main reason new housing is extremely expensive has to do with regulations themselves. It costs a lot of money to build a new apartment building because land where you are allowed to build is regulated by the State. Also the State requires many regulations that increase unnecessarily the costs, and most of all in the name of the ideology. For example, housing standards of Japan and the US, which are way cheaper and still serve two of the richest countries in the world, would never be allowed in Germany. That makes housing unaffordable and drives people into poverty.
      - Timon3 5d ago
        Could you give some specific examples of ideologically-motivated standards that Japan and the US don't fulfill?
- andsoitis 5d ago
  Then the govt. should build new homes; I'm not sure that taking homes from people ("nationalize") creates supply.
  - usernametaken29 5d ago
    But it does. There’s immense amount of houses that are unused because they’re part of speculation, and it’s easier to leave them empty than to deal with tenants and their rights. This is an extremely well documented, systemic issue in large European metropolis and especially in Berlin. Forcing existing property to be used immediately adds supply, and it also lowers prices. Exactly the things large property developers do not want. But I don’t give a shit what they want. I want affordable rent.
    - inglor_cz 5d ago
      immense amount of houses that are unused because they’re part of speculation, ... This is an extremely well documented, systemic issue in large European metropolis and especially in Berlin. Source? Deutschlandatlas says that Berlin has whole 2 percent of empty apartments for all reasons, which is less then half of German average [0] Some of those apartments are being remodeled, some are just in the period where the previous tenant moved out and the next moved in. There are 16 thousand long-term empty apartments, which looks like a huge number, but it is only 0.8 percent of the total. [1] Even if those 16 thousand apartments could be all put to market (some have legal barriers, like being part of a complicated litigation), that easing would not last even for a single mayor's tenure. Last year alone, Berlin grew up by 17 thousand people. [2] It was not an extraordinary year. ALL that money that the Linke wants to sink into old housing should be spent to build new one, just to accomodate the arrivals. [0] https://www.deutschlandatlas.bund.de/DE/Karten/Wie-wir-wohnen/046-Wohnungsleerstand.html https://www.deutschlandatlas.bund.de/DE/Karten/Wie-wir-wohne... [1] https://www.berlin.de/sen/wohnen/rechtliches/zweckentfremdungsverbot/ https://www.berlin.de/sen/wohnen/rechtliches/zweckentfremdun... [2] https://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/106-2025/ https://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/106-2025/
      - 5d ago
- tmnvix 5d ago
  Same story in NZ.
- dash2 5d ago
  Hmm, I got curious and read Wikipedia: > Levittowns are six large suburban housing developments, three of which are actually named "Levittown." They were created in the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning white veterans and their new families, the communities offered attractive alternatives to cramped central city locations and apartments. The Veterans Administration and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guaranteed builders that qualified veterans could buy housing for a fraction of rental costs. Under Levitt & Sons, Levittown housing would maintain racial covenants that excluded non-White would-be buyers. Italics added. Seems the government was somewhat involved in the US too. Of course, now the reason "the free market is terrible at pumping out houses" is government regulation too....
- bluegatty 5d ago
  Germany doe not have a housing shortage problem, it's another set of problems. (Edit: these are economic problems, productivity, bureaucracy, and all sorts of other things showing up as housing problems) They will have to wail until after WW3 because Russia is openly threatening action, European governments are trying to prepare their citizens, German populists want to return to 'normal relations' with Russia, which means 'use our money to invade and kill everyone to the East of us, just not us'. Germany and Europe is in for a very rough ride. Were it not for the war situation, then we could say this is 'healthy political turmoil' - but this is at a time when outside parties will take advantage of European disunity.
  - cedilla 5d ago
    Berlin has a massive shortage. Vacancy rates are at about 1.5%. Functioning housing markets are at about 3%.
    - bluegatty 5d ago
      It's wrong to suggest that vacancy rates are are necessarily sign of housing dysfunction. Areas that are attractive to live always have low vacancy rates, because there's a reason that people want to live there. The assumption that 'as many people ought to be able to live in a neighbourhood as should want to live there' - implied by the 'vacancy rate' issue just means 'every attractive area turns into Hong Kong'. While there can be very good reason for more building as well - socialized housing is almost never the answer to that. It has a role in some situations, but generally not on the aggregate like that. Usually this will have to do with permits, regulation - and frankly workers. Nobody wants to do the kind of labour necessary to build homes, and it's extremely hard to find workers to do that kind of work, which to anyone paying the least bit of attention should be a pretty big paradox. 'City overflowing with people who want homes to live don't want to make homes in which to live' Probably there's a lot of bureaucracy to clean out and that's a good place to start.
- GHanku 5d ago
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soonnow 5d ago
To add a b it of context. They do not want to confiscate housing. They do want to pay landlords, though below current (very high) rates. Also this would only apply to private real-estate companies not individual owners. And they can't govern alone, so I think it's unlikely that this plan is actually implemented as originally planned. The likely coalition would contain 3 parties.
- dirasieb 5d ago
  >it's not confiscation, you're just forced to sell at a price i decide is fair sound logic
  - paganel 5d ago
    You need sound logic against the evils of neo-liberalism, there's nothing logic about housing being as expensive as it now is.
    - giacomoforte 5d ago
      It's a reflection of the demand from people who want to live in Berlin.
      - 698969 5d ago
        Correction: It's a reflection of demand from people who already live in Berlin. That's who were allowed to vote in the referendum. They don't care about the elasticity of the market, or the demand from people who would want to live in Berlin in the future. They already have an apartment, and at pretty low prices because nearly everything built before 2014 is subject to rent control, I'd guess most people just voted for it because in their eyes "government promised to take apartment from my landlord and lower my rent even more".
    - tirant 5d ago
      The logic is defined by demand. Currently Berlin is under high demand, and that’s why drives prices up. On top of that many rents, around 12% are paid by the job center, which also drives prices up. That’s around 250.000 housing units paid by someone else’s money. That’s the scandal.
ant6n 5d ago
This sounds super alarmist. Bit it’s not: the party only got 25%, so they will have to make a coalition with other parties to govern. They were junior party in many previous coalitions. The weird thing this election was: there were like 7 parties with a mayor candidate - and none of them grew up in Berlin.
- Leonard_of_Q 5d ago
  [flagged]
  - mschuster91 5d ago
    Oh good lord, the utter majority of the Left Party today weren't even alive in the GDR period (and of those that were, a good bunch got yeeted to the BSW). And on top of that, all the other parties have gobbled up their East German Blockparteien as well and we don't label them collaborators either, nor do we call the CDU and especially CSU a Nazi party despite many former NSDAP members ending up there post WW2 (or a ton of them forming the AfD a decade ago).
    - tirant 5d ago
      Obviously after 36 years many people of Die Linke were not alive when the wall fell. But it’s still the same party as the SED, just a different name. The CDU and the CSU have nothing to do with the NSDAP. At some point in time in Germany 30% of the population were either part of the NSDAP or the Nazi Army. Luckily most of them were not war criminals and move on with their lives. And yes, some of them ended in the CDU/CSU but also of the SED/Die Linke. Just to give you an example, around 10-15% of the DDR state officials had held NSDAP membership pre-1945. Does that make the DDR a successor of the Nazi Regime? Obviously not. The same about the CDU/CSU. But Die Linke is still the same party as the SED. Same organization, which just voted themselves into different names.
      - Kbelicius 5d ago
        SED was Marxist–Leninist and Die Linke isn't. In what universe are they the same party?
rkachowski 5d ago
Before knee jerk reacting to this 1. 60% of the Berlin population voted for nationalising (expropriating) apartments from major landlords in a referendum - this is a bipartisan issue 2. This only affects entities with 3000 or more apartments
- throwawaydeutsc 5d ago
  > 1. 60% of the Berlin population voted for nationalising (expropriating) apartments from major landlords in a referendum - this is a bipartisan issue There's no bi-partisan thing around it: It was the fact that the city has a spcific demographic that voted for it, but the constitutional court revoked it. Another point: Even during the campaign the group did not explain how it would work given that most of the payments would need to be done at current market rates and the constitutional court will not pass it for obvious reasons. And on top of that, good luck to make all other states paying it and hoping that the Länderfinanzausgleich will stand.
  - 698969 5d ago
    The constitutional court revoked the "Mietendeckel" law which is a different one (rental cap for all apartments in the city). This sort of nationalisation has never been to trial.
    - mfru 5d ago
      Also, German law recognises legal expropriation
- poilcn 5d ago
  Entity = owner?
  - rkachowski 5d ago
    realistically a large corporation or concern
- aurareturn 5d ago
grougnax 5d ago
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throwawaydeutsc 5d ago
I used to live in South America (mid-tier city), living here in Berlin my will never understand how such intelligent people in general (no irony or sarcasm) never thought in a collective sense that if you have a market with a rigid supply in terms of availability (not occupied homes with no incentives for renting), it never made a serious planning for building. I was travelling to some big cities (between 70% of size of Berlin to 4x its size) and you can find a plethora of options since something modest that can fit in a minimal income (salario minimo) to nice appartments. Here we had in the last 7 years 55K units made, but in my home city alone we had more than 470K in a single city; if you're willing to be 1 hour away by car you can find apartments that the normal berliner never would have access in his/her entire life. Not to dunk on berliners, but once you're in the environment where people do real housing at scale you will see a small magic in terms of prices for the legacy supply dropping.
- atoav 5d ago
  Has to do mostly with the historic environment of the country. Berlin was a split city, so after the 90s it abstained mostly from what it perceived as dangerous political experiments. Also die Linke was basically seen as a continuation party of the GDRs SED, and as such didn't have the greatest of reputations in that city (shooting/jailing people that want to move out will do that miraculously). Die Linke today is a completely different generation of people and drawing any direct line to the SED is mostly wishful thinking by polemic conservatives.
- tirant 5d ago
  Unfortunately solving the housing crisis will remove any incentive to vote for the Left or the Socialist Party. Remember the first incentive of any politician is to remain in power not to solve citizens problems. Sometimes there’s overlapping, fortunately.
  - karmakurtisaani 5d ago
    I don't believe this is basically ever the case. The reality is more like that simple promises often collide with messy reality, and the compromise solution ends up solving a fraction of the original promise.
hackandthink 5d ago
Decades ago, when I was still living in Berlin, the predecessor party of Die Linke (the PDS) was made up of creepy former GDR officials. Yesterday on TV, I saw mostly hip young people. Elif Erap, the party’s lead candidate, reminded me of Chrissy Hynde from The Pretenders.
fabian2k 5d ago
If they try to avoid paying the full price, this will simply be stopped by the courts. If they do this the proper, legal way it will be far too expensive and not do anything useful. Affordable housing is a very important topic, but this isn't doing anything to fix the current issue.
- aniviacat 5d ago
  Why would it be stopped by the courts? The constitution explicitly allows expropriation for the public good. It also explicitly says the compensation amount shall account for the interests of the public. (GG Article 14 Point 3)
snickerer 5d ago
This headline is alarmist ('far-left' sounds dangerous for some people). And 'nationalise housing' is just wrong. This party is not far-left, it is just left. But that is not the point. My point is that a headline about anti-left alarmism hit the HN front page. This is unusual; the HN crowd keep their discussions out of daily politics most of the time. So, this has the smell of importance. Alarm! Far-left! And this is weird because Germany is in real danger of electing a fascist government at the moment. There is not the tiniest chance of socialist projects coming to power, but the far-right is winning—except for Berlin. And then an OMG-far-left headline pops up here. This headline was made to push anti-left fear, not to inform the readers.
- trashymctrash 5d ago
  > This party is not far-left, it is just left. Of all parties in Germany that have a shot at governing, it is the furthest left. Thus, „far-left“ is not wrong in my opinion.
  - dagenleg 5d ago
    By this logic Biden's administration was far left.
- tirant 5d ago
  The party is far left. There’s nothing to the left of them. They are the direct successor of the SED, the same ones that supported firing anyone willing to leave their socialist Berlin utopia by crossing the Berlin Wall. Nowadays votes by many young people that never lived in Berlin pre-1991.
mordae 5d ago
That's liberal left, not far left. Routers is just doing its usual capitalist propaganda here. Far left would be inciting people to outright hang landlords. Much like far right is labeling anarchists as terrorists in the US.
throwawaydeutsc 5d ago
For general context (this topic will be very charged, but anyways) in several times the party that won yesterday voted against urban density for new units. This is a compilation of an anthologic Reddit post (deleted, but all the links are working): ... Und wenn dann jemand Nachverdichtung vorschlägt, passiert das hier: 1. Gegen 240 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg [1] 2. Gegen 150 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Salzmannstraße) [2] 3. Gegen 105 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Joachimsthaler Str.) [3] [4] Hier hat sich die Linke sogar dazu verleiten gefühlt, den Gegnern einen Preis und 500 € zu geben, damit sie ihren Kampf gegen den sozialen Wohnungsbau fortführen können. Die Linke betont ganz stolz, dass das Geld bereits verwendet wurde „um neue Protest-Banner anzuschaffen und mehr Menschen auf das Thema aufmerksam zu machen“ [5]. Again: „das Thema“ ist die Verhinderung des kommunalen Wohnungsbaus. 4. Gegen 84 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Gotlindestraße) [6], dabei wird das erzkonservative Weltbild der Bürgerinitiative unterstützt: „So, wie das Viertel einmal geplant wurde, soll es bestehen bleiben.“ Siehe die Selbstbeschreibung der BI [7]. 5. Gegen 50 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Atzpodinenstraße) [6] 6. Gegen 150 landeseigene Wohnungen in Schöneberg [8]: Dort haben sie Einwendungen gegen den Bebauungsplan formuliert, also aktiv rechtliche Schritte gegen den Wohnungsbau eingeleitet, und ganz offen ihre Position kundgegeben: „Das Vorhaben [150 landeseigene Wohnungen!] ist für die Anwohner*innen ausschließlich mit Nachteilen behaftet, einen gesellschaftlichen Mehrwert gibt es nicht.“ 7. Gegen 95 landeseigene Wohnungen in Treptow [9] 8. Gegen ~60 landeseigene Wohnungen in Treptow [10]: „Die Nachverdichtungen bestehender Wohnquartiere sollen möglichst vermieden werden und gegebenenfalls behutsam unter Erhalt von möglichst viel Grün und unter Berücksichtigung der ursprünglichen Siedlungskonzepte erfolgen.“ 9. Gegen 30 landeseigene Wohnungen in Friedrichshain [11] 10. Allgemein gegen Wohnungsbau in Treptow [12] 11. Allgemein gegen Wohnungsbau in Pankow [13] 12. Allgemein gegen Neubauziele in ganz Berlin [14] Alles Beispiele von Die Linke, weil das die Partei ist, die eigentlich am härtesten für den sozialen Wohnungsbau kämpfen müsste. Auch Neubau im Außenbereich wird nicht gerne gesehen: 5.000 Wohnungen auf der Elisabeth-Aue sollten verhindert werden [15]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211015205615/https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/streit-um-neubauflaechen-in-berlin-mehr-wohnungen-ja-aber-nicht-hier/23239976.html https://web.archive.org/web/20211015205615/https://www.tages... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210202231844/https://www.linksfraktion-lichtenberg.de/termine/detail/news/vernetzungstreffen-kein-hochhaus-an-der-salzmannstr-34/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210202231844/https://www.links... [3] https://www.facebook.com/linke.lichtenberg/photos/a.166898080011078/4609320825768759/ https://www.facebook.com/linke.lichtenberg/photos/a.16689808... [4] https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/bezirke/nachverdichtung-im-berliner-osten-der-nachste-grune-innenhof-soll-bebaut-werden-12577055.html https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.... [5] https://archive.is/a8QVo https://archive.is/a8QVo [6] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926185744/https://www.berliner-woche.de/lichtenberg/c-bauen/anwohner-und-bezirksverordnete-kritisieren-mangelnde-kommunikation_a306660 https://web.archive.org/web/20220926185744/https://www.berli... [7] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926184054/https://www.nachhaltigestadtentwicklung.berlin/ueber-uns/auf-dem-lichten-berg/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220926184054/https://www.nachh... [8] https://web.archive.org/web/20220119200234/https://www.linksfraktion-tempelhof-schoeneberg.de/themen/muehlenberg/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220119200234/https://www.links... [9] https://web.archive.org/web/20220927182345/https://mobile.twitter.com/linksfraktiontk/status/1496406488054747140 https://web.archive.org/web/20220927182345/https://mobile.tw... [10] https://web.archive.org/web/20220928214930/https://www.dielinke-treptow-koepenick.de/politik/aktuelles/detail/news/nachverdichtung-durch-wohnungsbau https://web.archive.org/web/20220928214930/https://www.dieli... [11] https://web.archive.org/web/20220307125359/https://leute.tagesspiegel.de/friedrichshain-kreuzberg/macher/2021/11/25/198212/protest-gegen-baumfaellungen-in-der-pintschstrasse/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220307125359/https://leute.tag... [12] https://www.dielinke-treptow-koepenick.de/politik/aktuelles/detail/news/nachverdichtung-ohne-planung-und-beteiligung/ https://www.dielinke-treptow-koepenick.de/politik/aktuelles/... [13] https://web.archive.org/web/20210910093835/https://www.die-linke-pankow.de/nc/politik/extradrei/detail/news/nachverdichtung-muss-auf-den-pruefstand/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210910093835/https://www.die-l... [14] https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2022/05/berlin-bauen-geisel-streit-koalition-wohnungen-neubau-ziele.html https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2022/05/berlin-bauen-ge... [15] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/baustopp-fur-den-klimaschutz-grune-und-linke-wollen-bis-zu-8000-neue-wohnungen-in-berlin-verhindern-9163149.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/baustopp-fur-den-klimasch...
drcongo 5d ago
Finally some good news.
- drcongo 5d ago
  It's been fun watching the upvotes on this rise until the US woke up and then drop back down again because socialism is the new satanic panic.
consumer451 5d ago
What is their position on Russia's war in Ukraine, and NATO in general? I am not German, but from what I can tell it's basically no arms for the defense of Ukraine, and no NATO rebuilding. Is that correct? Just like AfD, extremely convenient for one particular country. Three years ago, a pro-imperial Russian told me that we will see regime change in the West, before in Moscow. Looking around the EU at the moment, it turns out that he was correct. What an absolute tragedy.
- kiwibyproxy 5d ago
  This is Berlin city state government, not federal level. International/Foreign politics it outside of the scope.
  - consumer451 5d ago
    I understand, as I was told this about AfD's recent performance as well. However, is this not an indication of what is to come in future national elections? I mean, how does a local-only party plan to "nationalize housing?" If this has zero bearing on future national policies, I would love to be talked down.
josefritzishere 5d ago
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kazinator 5d ago
Maybe they should start with something easy, like building a simple wall.

After WW2 all European countries had massive housing shortages. It was not capitalism that solved it but heavy government involvement. In a span a few decades millions of people were re-housed. The free market is remarkably terrible at pumping out houses fast.

ChickeNES 5d ago
Yet in the US, it was developers following the Levittown model that resulted in tons and tons of single family homes, so I fail to see how the free market is terrible at "pumping out houses fast"?
- gambiting 5d ago
  Well, think whether the market conditions that lead to it could be recreated today, and then you'll see how the free market fails to deliver a lot of housing fast. Developers have long ago realized it's better for them to pump out fewer houses with more profit margin slower, than lots of houses with little profit margins. They get a planning permission on a giant site for a 1000 houses but only build 50 a year to not disrupt the high prices they can charge for each unit. That's free market for you right now.
  - ChickeNES 5d ago
    This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of how the housing market works, and totally ignores apartments/midrises/highrises. The problem with housing in the US lies with overregulation (mostly in the form of zoning). I know this well, as someone who has attended numerous planning meetings in Chicago, I have seen many buildings reduced in unit count solely due to NIMBYs (mostly retired people, as these meetings are often during the day or the immediately 5-7pm time when many people are still commuting home from work).
    - gambiting 5d ago
      No idea about the US, but that is indeed how it happens on this side of the pond - developers rarely build mid or high rises, it's all single family homes.
    - stockresearcher 5d ago
      As far as big cities go, Chicago is a very easy city to build in. However, as you surely know, it follows an informal system called Aldermanic Prerogative, which gives a lot of influence to the alderman in charge of each ward. If the NIMBYs in your local area have excessive sway, it’s because your local alderman depends on them. In my old neighborhood, if a developer wanted to build a high rise with 300 apartments, they’d make a proposal for 350 apartments, have a few public meetings, let people yell at them for a couple hours, and make a “concession” of reducing the project to 300 apartments. Then everyone goes home happy. Everyone knew that was the game, except perhaps a few obtuse NIMBYs that thought they were accomplishing something. In the mile or two south of Roosevelt Rd, there are 5000-10000 permitted apartments/condos, just waiting for some developer to get a loan and pull permits to start construction. No public meetings needed. They could start building next week.
- mschild 5d ago
  The market is not terrible pumping out houses fast, but the current market conditions mean that said houses/apartments are not affordable for most people. The average rent in Berlin (and other German cities) is not very high but that's because a lot of flats still run on a very old contract. If you're moving to Berlin, finding an apartment is incredibly difficult, even if you're willing to spend a lot of money. My grandmother lives by herself in a 90sqm flat in a really nice area and pays 400 Euros a month. In the last 10 years she tried to find a smaller flat (30-40 sqm) for herself but the cheapest she could find was 750. So she stays where she is and just doesn't use 2 of the rooms she has except for storage. In the meantime, a friend of mine moved to Berlin and couldn't find a decent 60sqm flat for less than 1400 Euros. The only way to get those affordable rents is either knowing someone who is moving out or getting super lucky by finding and getting it through a public ad. Massenbesichtigung (mass viewings) are not uncommon. The agent will publish a public timeslot and literally hundreds of people lined around the block will show up to view a single flat.
  - tirant 5d ago
    The main reason new housing is extremely expensive has to do with regulations themselves. It costs a lot of money to build a new apartment building because land where you are allowed to build is regulated by the State. Also the State requires many regulations that increase unnecessarily the costs, and most of all in the name of the ideology. For example, housing standards of Japan and the US, which are way cheaper and still serve two of the richest countries in the world, would never be allowed in Germany. That makes housing unaffordable and drives people into poverty.
    - Timon3 5d ago
      Could you give some specific examples of ideologically-motivated standards that Japan and the US don't fulfill?
andsoitis 5d ago
Then the govt. should build new homes; I'm not sure that taking homes from people ("nationalize") creates supply.
- usernametaken29 5d ago
  But it does. There’s immense amount of houses that are unused because they’re part of speculation, and it’s easier to leave them empty than to deal with tenants and their rights. This is an extremely well documented, systemic issue in large European metropolis and especially in Berlin. Forcing existing property to be used immediately adds supply, and it also lowers prices. Exactly the things large property developers do not want. But I don’t give a shit what they want. I want affordable rent.
  - inglor_cz 5d ago
    immense amount of houses that are unused because they’re part of speculation, ... This is an extremely well documented, systemic issue in large European metropolis and especially in Berlin. Source? Deutschlandatlas says that Berlin has whole 2 percent of empty apartments for all reasons, which is less then half of German average [0] Some of those apartments are being remodeled, some are just in the period where the previous tenant moved out and the next moved in. There are 16 thousand long-term empty apartments, which looks like a huge number, but it is only 0.8 percent of the total. [1] Even if those 16 thousand apartments could be all put to market (some have legal barriers, like being part of a complicated litigation), that easing would not last even for a single mayor's tenure. Last year alone, Berlin grew up by 17 thousand people. [2] It was not an extraordinary year. ALL that money that the Linke wants to sink into old housing should be spent to build new one, just to accomodate the arrivals. [0] https://www.deutschlandatlas.bund.de/DE/Karten/Wie-wir-wohnen/046-Wohnungsleerstand.html https://www.deutschlandatlas.bund.de/DE/Karten/Wie-wir-wohne... [1] https://www.berlin.de/sen/wohnen/rechtliches/zweckentfremdungsverbot/ https://www.berlin.de/sen/wohnen/rechtliches/zweckentfremdun... [2] https://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/106-2025/ https://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/106-2025/
    - 5d ago
tmnvix 5d ago
Same story in NZ.
dash2 5d ago
Hmm, I got curious and read Wikipedia: > Levittowns are six large suburban housing developments, three of which are actually named "Levittown." They were created in the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning white veterans and their new families, the communities offered attractive alternatives to cramped central city locations and apartments. The Veterans Administration and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guaranteed builders that qualified veterans could buy housing for a fraction of rental costs. Under Levitt & Sons, Levittown housing would maintain racial covenants that excluded non-White would-be buyers. Italics added. Seems the government was somewhat involved in the US too. Of course, now the reason "the free market is terrible at pumping out houses" is government regulation too....
bluegatty 5d ago
Germany doe not have a housing shortage problem, it's another set of problems. (Edit: these are economic problems, productivity, bureaucracy, and all sorts of other things showing up as housing problems) They will have to wail until after WW3 because Russia is openly threatening action, European governments are trying to prepare their citizens, German populists want to return to 'normal relations' with Russia, which means 'use our money to invade and kill everyone to the East of us, just not us'. Germany and Europe is in for a very rough ride. Were it not for the war situation, then we could say this is 'healthy political turmoil' - but this is at a time when outside parties will take advantage of European disunity.
- cedilla 5d ago
  Berlin has a massive shortage. Vacancy rates are at about 1.5%. Functioning housing markets are at about 3%.
  - bluegatty 5d ago
    It's wrong to suggest that vacancy rates are are necessarily sign of housing dysfunction. Areas that are attractive to live always have low vacancy rates, because there's a reason that people want to live there. The assumption that 'as many people ought to be able to live in a neighbourhood as should want to live there' - implied by the 'vacancy rate' issue just means 'every attractive area turns into Hong Kong'. While there can be very good reason for more building as well - socialized housing is almost never the answer to that. It has a role in some situations, but generally not on the aggregate like that. Usually this will have to do with permits, regulation - and frankly workers. Nobody wants to do the kind of labour necessary to build homes, and it's extremely hard to find workers to do that kind of work, which to anyone paying the least bit of attention should be a pretty big paradox. 'City overflowing with people who want homes to live don't want to make homes in which to live' Probably there's a lot of bureaucracy to clean out and that's a good place to start.
GHanku 5d ago
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soonnow 5d ago

To add a b it of context. They do not want to confiscate housing. They do want to pay landlords, though below current (very high) rates. Also this would only apply to private real-estate companies not individual owners. And they can't govern alone, so I think it's unlikely that this plan is actually implemented as originally planned. The likely coalition would contain 3 parties.

dirasieb 5d ago
>it's not confiscation, you're just forced to sell at a price i decide is fair sound logic
- paganel 5d ago
  You need sound logic against the evils of neo-liberalism, there's nothing logic about housing being as expensive as it now is.
  - giacomoforte 5d ago
    It's a reflection of the demand from people who want to live in Berlin.
    - 698969 5d ago
      Correction: It's a reflection of demand from people who already live in Berlin. That's who were allowed to vote in the referendum. They don't care about the elasticity of the market, or the demand from people who would want to live in Berlin in the future. They already have an apartment, and at pretty low prices because nearly everything built before 2014 is subject to rent control, I'd guess most people just voted for it because in their eyes "government promised to take apartment from my landlord and lower my rent even more".
  - tirant 5d ago
    The logic is defined by demand. Currently Berlin is under high demand, and that’s why drives prices up. On top of that many rents, around 12% are paid by the job center, which also drives prices up. That’s around 250.000 housing units paid by someone else’s money. That’s the scandal.

ant6n 5d ago

This sounds super alarmist. Bit it’s not: the party only got 25%, so they will have to make a coalition with other parties to govern. They were junior party in many previous coalitions. The weird thing this election was: there were like 7 parties with a mayor candidate - and none of them grew up in Berlin.

Leonard_of_Q 5d ago
[flagged]
- mschuster91 5d ago
  Oh good lord, the utter majority of the Left Party today weren't even alive in the GDR period (and of those that were, a good bunch got yeeted to the BSW). And on top of that, all the other parties have gobbled up their East German Blockparteien as well and we don't label them collaborators either, nor do we call the CDU and especially CSU a Nazi party despite many former NSDAP members ending up there post WW2 (or a ton of them forming the AfD a decade ago).
  - tirant 5d ago
    Obviously after 36 years many people of Die Linke were not alive when the wall fell. But it’s still the same party as the SED, just a different name. The CDU and the CSU have nothing to do with the NSDAP. At some point in time in Germany 30% of the population were either part of the NSDAP or the Nazi Army. Luckily most of them were not war criminals and move on with their lives. And yes, some of them ended in the CDU/CSU but also of the SED/Die Linke. Just to give you an example, around 10-15% of the DDR state officials had held NSDAP membership pre-1945. Does that make the DDR a successor of the Nazi Regime? Obviously not. The same about the CDU/CSU. But Die Linke is still the same party as the SED. Same organization, which just voted themselves into different names.
    - Kbelicius 5d ago
      SED was Marxist–Leninist and Die Linke isn't. In what universe are they the same party?

rkachowski 5d ago

Before knee jerk reacting to this 1. 60% of the Berlin population voted for nationalising (expropriating) apartments from major landlords in a referendum - this is a bipartisan issue 2. This only affects entities with 3000 or more apartments

throwawaydeutsc 5d ago
> 1. 60% of the Berlin population voted for nationalising (expropriating) apartments from major landlords in a referendum - this is a bipartisan issue There's no bi-partisan thing around it: It was the fact that the city has a spcific demographic that voted for it, but the constitutional court revoked it. Another point: Even during the campaign the group did not explain how it would work given that most of the payments would need to be done at current market rates and the constitutional court will not pass it for obvious reasons. And on top of that, good luck to make all other states paying it and hoping that the Länderfinanzausgleich will stand.
- 698969 5d ago
  The constitutional court revoked the "Mietendeckel" law which is a different one (rental cap for all apartments in the city). This sort of nationalisation has never been to trial.
  - mfru 5d ago
    Also, German law recognises legal expropriation
poilcn 5d ago
Entity = owner?
- rkachowski 5d ago
  realistically a large corporation or concern
aurareturn 5d ago

grougnax 5d ago

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throwawaydeutsc 5d ago

I used to live in South America (mid-tier city), living here in Berlin my will never understand how such intelligent people in general (no irony or sarcasm) never thought in a collective sense that if you have a market with a rigid supply in terms of availability (not occupied homes with no incentives for renting), it never made a serious planning for building. I was travelling to some big cities (between 70% of size of Berlin to 4x its size) and you can find a plethora of options since something modest that can fit in a minimal income (salario minimo) to nice appartments. Here we had in the last 7 years 55K units made, but in my home city alone we had more than 470K in a single city; if you're willing to be 1 hour away by car you can find apartments that the normal berliner never would have access in his/her entire life. Not to dunk on berliners, but once you're in the environment where people do real housing at scale you will see a small magic in terms of prices for the legacy supply dropping.

atoav 5d ago
Has to do mostly with the historic environment of the country. Berlin was a split city, so after the 90s it abstained mostly from what it perceived as dangerous political experiments. Also die Linke was basically seen as a continuation party of the GDRs SED, and as such didn't have the greatest of reputations in that city (shooting/jailing people that want to move out will do that miraculously). Die Linke today is a completely different generation of people and drawing any direct line to the SED is mostly wishful thinking by polemic conservatives.
tirant 5d ago
Unfortunately solving the housing crisis will remove any incentive to vote for the Left or the Socialist Party. Remember the first incentive of any politician is to remain in power not to solve citizens problems. Sometimes there’s overlapping, fortunately.
- karmakurtisaani 5d ago
  I don't believe this is basically ever the case. The reality is more like that simple promises often collide with messy reality, and the compromise solution ends up solving a fraction of the original promise.

hackandthink 5d ago

Decades ago, when I was still living in Berlin, the predecessor party of Die Linke (the PDS) was made up of creepy former GDR officials. Yesterday on TV, I saw mostly hip young people. Elif Erap, the party’s lead candidate, reminded me of Chrissy Hynde from The Pretenders.

fabian2k 5d ago

If they try to avoid paying the full price, this will simply be stopped by the courts. If they do this the proper, legal way it will be far too expensive and not do anything useful. Affordable housing is a very important topic, but this isn't doing anything to fix the current issue.

aniviacat 5d ago
Why would it be stopped by the courts? The constitution explicitly allows expropriation for the public good. It also explicitly says the compensation amount shall account for the interests of the public. (GG Article 14 Point 3)

snickerer 5d ago

This headline is alarmist ('far-left' sounds dangerous for some people). And 'nationalise housing' is just wrong. This party is not far-left, it is just left. But that is not the point. My point is that a headline about anti-left alarmism hit the HN front page. This is unusual; the HN crowd keep their discussions out of daily politics most of the time. So, this has the smell of importance. Alarm! Far-left! And this is weird because Germany is in real danger of electing a fascist government at the moment. There is not the tiniest chance of socialist projects coming to power, but the far-right is winning—except for Berlin. And then an OMG-far-left headline pops up here. This headline was made to push anti-left fear, not to inform the readers.

trashymctrash 5d ago
> This party is not far-left, it is just left. Of all parties in Germany that have a shot at governing, it is the furthest left. Thus, „far-left“ is not wrong in my opinion.
- dagenleg 5d ago
  By this logic Biden's administration was far left.
tirant 5d ago
The party is far left. There’s nothing to the left of them. They are the direct successor of the SED, the same ones that supported firing anyone willing to leave their socialist Berlin utopia by crossing the Berlin Wall. Nowadays votes by many young people that never lived in Berlin pre-1991.

mordae 5d ago

That's liberal left, not far left. Routers is just doing its usual capitalist propaganda here. Far left would be inciting people to outright hang landlords. Much like far right is labeling anarchists as terrorists in the US.

throwawaydeutsc 5d ago

For general context (this topic will be very charged, but anyways) in several times the party that won yesterday voted against urban density for new units. This is a compilation of an anthologic Reddit post (deleted, but all the links are working): ... Und wenn dann jemand Nachverdichtung vorschlägt, passiert das hier: 1. Gegen 240 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg [1] 2. Gegen 150 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Salzmannstraße) [2] 3. Gegen 105 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Joachimsthaler Str.) [3] [4] Hier hat sich die Linke sogar dazu verleiten gefühlt, den Gegnern einen Preis und 500 € zu geben, damit sie ihren Kampf gegen den sozialen Wohnungsbau fortführen können. Die Linke betont ganz stolz, dass das Geld bereits verwendet wurde „um neue Protest-Banner anzuschaffen und mehr Menschen auf das Thema aufmerksam zu machen“ [5]. Again: „das Thema“ ist die Verhinderung des kommunalen Wohnungsbaus. 4. Gegen 84 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Gotlindestraße) [6], dabei wird das erzkonservative Weltbild der Bürgerinitiative unterstützt: „So, wie das Viertel einmal geplant wurde, soll es bestehen bleiben.“ Siehe die Selbstbeschreibung der BI [7]. 5. Gegen 50 landeseigene Wohnungen in Lichtenberg (Atzpodinenstraße) [6] 6. Gegen 150 landeseigene Wohnungen in Schöneberg [8]: Dort haben sie Einwendungen gegen den Bebauungsplan formuliert, also aktiv rechtliche Schritte gegen den Wohnungsbau eingeleitet, und ganz offen ihre Position kundgegeben: „Das Vorhaben [150 landeseigene Wohnungen!] ist für die Anwohner*innen ausschließlich mit Nachteilen behaftet, einen gesellschaftlichen Mehrwert gibt es nicht.“ 7. Gegen 95 landeseigene Wohnungen in Treptow [9] 8. Gegen ~60 landeseigene Wohnungen in Treptow [10]: „Die Nachverdichtungen bestehender Wohnquartiere sollen möglichst vermieden werden und gegebenenfalls behutsam unter Erhalt von möglichst viel Grün und unter Berücksichtigung der ursprünglichen Siedlungskonzepte erfolgen.“ 9. Gegen 30 landeseigene Wohnungen in Friedrichshain [11] 10. Allgemein gegen Wohnungsbau in Treptow [12] 11. Allgemein gegen Wohnungsbau in Pankow [13] 12. Allgemein gegen Neubauziele in ganz Berlin [14] Alles Beispiele von Die Linke, weil das die Partei ist, die eigentlich am härtesten für den sozialen Wohnungsbau kämpfen müsste. Auch Neubau im Außenbereich wird nicht gerne gesehen: 5.000 Wohnungen auf der Elisabeth-Aue sollten verhindert werden [15]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211015205615/https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/streit-um-neubauflaechen-in-berlin-mehr-wohnungen-ja-aber-nicht-hier/23239976.html https://web.archive.org/web/20211015205615/https://www.tages... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210202231844/https://www.linksfraktion-lichtenberg.de/termine/detail/news/vernetzungstreffen-kein-hochhaus-an-der-salzmannstr-34/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210202231844/https://www.links... [3] https://www.facebook.com/linke.lichtenberg/photos/a.166898080011078/4609320825768759/ https://www.facebook.com/linke.lichtenberg/photos/a.16689808... [4] https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/bezirke/nachverdichtung-im-berliner-osten-der-nachste-grune-innenhof-soll-bebaut-werden-12577055.html https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www.... [5] https://archive.is/a8QVo https://archive.is/a8QVo [6] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926185744/https://www.berliner-woche.de/lichtenberg/c-bauen/anwohner-und-bezirksverordnete-kritisieren-mangelnde-kommunikation_a306660 https://web.archive.org/web/20220926185744/https://www.berli... [7] https://web.archive.org/web/20220926184054/https://www.nachhaltigestadtentwicklung.berlin/ueber-uns/auf-dem-lichten-berg/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220926184054/https://www.nachh... [8] https://web.archive.org/web/20220119200234/https://www.linksfraktion-tempelhof-schoeneberg.de/themen/muehlenberg/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220119200234/https://www.links... [9] https://web.archive.org/web/20220927182345/https://mobile.twitter.com/linksfraktiontk/status/1496406488054747140 https://web.archive.org/web/20220927182345/https://mobile.tw... [10] https://web.archive.org/web/20220928214930/https://www.dielinke-treptow-koepenick.de/politik/aktuelles/detail/news/nachverdichtung-durch-wohnungsbau https://web.archive.org/web/20220928214930/https://www.dieli... [11] https://web.archive.org/web/20220307125359/https://leute.tagesspiegel.de/friedrichshain-kreuzberg/macher/2021/11/25/198212/protest-gegen-baumfaellungen-in-der-pintschstrasse/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220307125359/https://leute.tag... [12] https://www.dielinke-treptow-koepenick.de/politik/aktuelles/detail/news/nachverdichtung-ohne-planung-und-beteiligung/ https://www.dielinke-treptow-koepenick.de/politik/aktuelles/... [13] https://web.archive.org/web/20210910093835/https://www.die-linke-pankow.de/nc/politik/extradrei/detail/news/nachverdichtung-muss-auf-den-pruefstand/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210910093835/https://www.die-l... [14] https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2022/05/berlin-bauen-geisel-streit-koalition-wohnungen-neubau-ziele.html https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2022/05/berlin-bauen-ge... [15] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/baustopp-fur-den-klimaschutz-grune-und-linke-wollen-bis-zu-8000-neue-wohnungen-in-berlin-verhindern-9163149.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/baustopp-fur-den-klimasch...

drcongo 5d ago

Finally some good news.

drcongo 5d ago
It's been fun watching the upvotes on this rise until the US woke up and then drop back down again because socialism is the new satanic panic.

consumer451 5d ago

What is their position on Russia's war in Ukraine, and NATO in general? I am not German, but from what I can tell it's basically no arms for the defense of Ukraine, and no NATO rebuilding. Is that correct? Just like AfD, extremely convenient for one particular country. Three years ago, a pro-imperial Russian told me that we will see regime change in the West, before in Moscow. Looking around the EU at the moment, it turns out that he was correct. What an absolute tragedy.

kiwibyproxy 5d ago
This is Berlin city state government, not federal level. International/Foreign politics it outside of the scope.
- consumer451 5d ago
  I understand, as I was told this about AfD's recent performance as well. However, is this not an indication of what is to come in future national elections? I mean, how does a local-only party plan to "nationalize housing?" If this has zero bearing on future national policies, I would love to be talked down.

josefritzishere 5d ago

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kazinator 5d ago

Maybe they should start with something easy, like building a simple wall.