3 ms·

>it's not confiscation, you're just forced to sell at a price i decide is fair sound logic

paganel 13d 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 13d ago
  It's a reflection of the demand from people who want to live in Berlin.
  - 698969 13d 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 13d 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.
  - paganel 13d ago
    > Currently Berlin is under high demand, and that’s why drives prices up Yeah, I know the written logic of all this, but as things stand right now we didn't have homelessness East of the Wall back in the day, while the West had. That should have been reason enough to throw all this capitalist and pervert logic under the bus, but I understand how come the highly paid programmers in here are happy with the current economic system, homelessness be damned. Which is to say, you're telling me nothing new.
    - tirant 13d ago
      Do you know why there was not homelessness in the DDR? Because it was forbidden by law. You were forced to be put in an institution or directly went to prison. Check Section 249 of the DDR Criminal Code. And by the way, the DDR suffered from chronic housing shortage. People were cramped in barracks with not bathroom and no heating. Technically housed but in actually povert level of housing. It was an absolute disaster.
      - paganel 13d ago
        > Because it was forbidden by law. You were forced to be put in an institution or directly went to prison Seems like a very good law, don't you think? And this reminded me of how come one of my favorite childhood books from when I was 3 or 4 here in Romania was about DDR constructors building apartment flats, loved that book and loved the spirit behind it. > People were cramped in barracks with not bathroom and no heating There were? Back in the '70s and '80s? You sure? I don't remember it that way here in Romania back in the '80s, and I know that the DDR had a much better economic condition than us, Socialist Republic of Romania.
        deleted 13d ago
        [deleted]
4gotunameagain 13d ago
The "free market" (which has been demonstrated to not be free at all) has no place in basic needs such as housing. Rent extraction is utterly counterproductive for a society. Housing should not be a commodity.
- WithinReason 13d ago
  Who builds the houses then?
  - mschuster91 13d ago
    Governments directly, cooperatives or non-profit organizations. The Churches used to be pretty active in that space as well to invest tithes, with rents paying for common-welfare projects.
    - IshKebab 13d ago
      Yeay communism! They built such lovely tower blocks.
      - vrganj 13d ago
        Yeah like that ugly drab city of ... Vienna?? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc...
        WithinReason 13d ago
        That's more like social housing: > an income maximum for applicants of €57,600 and can't be bought, only rented
        mschuster91 12d ago
        first of all, Europeans don't need American wages. 57k is comfortable middle class in Austria, especially if you have government subsidised housing. as for the "only rented" part, again, at this level of low rent it does not matter. you're better off renting. And Europeans have actual pension systems, we are nowhere near as reliant on real estate always appreciating in value.
mschuster91 13d ago
Most of the affected housing used to be government owned, sold at firesale prices after the CDU Diepgen government thoroughly wrecked the state finances with a banking scandal at the end of the 90s. The large investor landlords purchased the homes and often didn't even do the bare minimum in upkeep. The real estate nevertheless appreciated massively because of Berlin getting more and more popular. It therefore makes sense to nationalize this housing stock, and I'd see a value comprised of "original purchase price, upkeep and inflation-plus-3%-tied appreciation" as fair value. Maybe even less because they extracted 20 years worth of rent payments from the properties already.
- IshKebab 13d ago
  I don't know if that's really fair though because it's unlikely that the people that benefited from the fire sale are still the owners. It would make more sense just enforce maintenance standards and improve renters rights. You can't really legislate supply & demand.
  - 698969 13d ago
    Still the same companies Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia but I agree with the second part. Their yearly profits are capped because of the Mietpreisbremse (rent control) law since all the old buildings that they bought would fall under it, so it would've been better to put the money towards either building new state-owned housing or helping the tenants enforce their rights. The laws are there to protect tenants against neglect from the landlord but enforcement takes multiple months which is not a reasonable timeline if you have a problem in your apartment and the consequences for landlord are mostly just reducing the rent for that time by a certain percentage which doesn't make a difference if the rents are already cheap because of the Mietpreisbremse, so it would also be good to introduce fines but not sure if Germany's legal framework allows for that.
- tirant 13d ago
  The reality is that the actual large-scale sell-off of public housing was carried out under the SPD–PDS (now The Left) red-red coalition led by Klaus Wowereit in 2004. for prices of around 30.000€ per unit.
bmacho 13d ago
[edit - deleted]
- backhold 13d ago
  With the disclaimer that I am neither German nor familiar with the policy under discussion, Confiscation with (some) remuneration is still confiscation. Is your comment satirical?
  - deleted 13d ago
    [deleted]
monegator 13d ago
Given it affects PE funds that have gouged up all the supply, yes that is sound logic. My province's capital has 43% of unhinabitated houses. They are not even on the market, as we are in a housing crisis. Vast majority of them are property of large housing groups that are backed by black rock and company. The same firms are manouvering the politicians to get approvals to build modern monstruosities, because there is a housing crisis, but they build only luxury homes thst cost too much and remain unhinabitated. Yes it is sound logic to force big conglomerates to dissolve by law. Law should aim for the public good.
- m4xp 12d ago
  There should be huge taxes on empty houses. This breaks the supply demand price negotiation, if they can gauge price by 2x they dont care if they rent half the houses.
  - Helmut10001 12d ago
    Such a law existed in San Francisco since 2022 and it was just cancelled by court order. The problem is: there are so many edge cases for empty apartments that it is impossible to account for. In Berlin, e.g., just imagine all the empty apartments in 10 years because no one wants to rent unrenovated, uninsulated apartments because of energy prices. The landlord cannot pay renovation. Forcing landlords to pay an empty apartment penalty doesn't help here.
    - scarecrowbob 12d ago
      I am not a capitalist, but isn't that the kind of problem that capitalism would solve? Wouldn't the landlords would just take a loss and sell the property to avoid penalties?
      - Helmut10001 12d ago
        If there is no business model and no one wants to pay, what then? We'd have a lot of vacant properties that would need to be renovated by the city. We see this in lots of places in Germany already, where there simply aren't buyers (because of demographics, primarily). Further, if you devalue properties with such a law, then you'd have a credit/dept property - landlords couldn't pay their dept, if property prices devalue by state law. Lastly, no one would build properties anymore under such a law. .. Cities also rely quite a bit on property and real estate transfer taxes. By reducing property values, cities destroy their own tax base while needing lots of additional money to renovate state-acquired, vacant properties.

You need sound logic against the evils of neo-liberalism, there's nothing logic about housing being as expensive as it now is.

giacomoforte 13d ago
It's a reflection of the demand from people who want to live in Berlin.
- 698969 13d 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 13d 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.
- paganel 13d ago
  > Currently Berlin is under high demand, and that’s why drives prices up Yeah, I know the written logic of all this, but as things stand right now we didn't have homelessness East of the Wall back in the day, while the West had. That should have been reason enough to throw all this capitalist and pervert logic under the bus, but I understand how come the highly paid programmers in here are happy with the current economic system, homelessness be damned. Which is to say, you're telling me nothing new.
  - tirant 13d ago
    Do you know why there was not homelessness in the DDR? Because it was forbidden by law. You were forced to be put in an institution or directly went to prison. Check Section 249 of the DDR Criminal Code. And by the way, the DDR suffered from chronic housing shortage. People were cramped in barracks with not bathroom and no heating. Technically housed but in actually povert level of housing. It was an absolute disaster.
    - paganel 13d ago
      > Because it was forbidden by law. You were forced to be put in an institution or directly went to prison Seems like a very good law, don't you think? And this reminded me of how come one of my favorite childhood books from when I was 3 or 4 here in Romania was about DDR constructors building apartment flats, loved that book and loved the spirit behind it. > People were cramped in barracks with not bathroom and no heating There were? Back in the '70s and '80s? You sure? I don't remember it that way here in Romania back in the '80s, and I know that the DDR had a much better economic condition than us, Socialist Republic of Romania.
      - deleted 13d ago
        [deleted]

4gotunameagain 13d ago

The "free market" (which has been demonstrated to not be free at all) has no place in basic needs such as housing. Rent extraction is utterly counterproductive for a society. Housing should not be a commodity.

WithinReason 13d ago
Who builds the houses then?
- mschuster91 13d ago
  Governments directly, cooperatives or non-profit organizations. The Churches used to be pretty active in that space as well to invest tithes, with rents paying for common-welfare projects.
  - IshKebab 13d ago
    Yeay communism! They built such lovely tower blocks.
    - vrganj 13d ago
      Yeah like that ugly drab city of ... Vienna?? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc...
      - WithinReason 13d ago
        That's more like social housing: > an income maximum for applicants of €57,600 and can't be bought, only rented
        mschuster91 12d ago
        first of all, Europeans don't need American wages. 57k is comfortable middle class in Austria, especially if you have government subsidised housing. as for the "only rented" part, again, at this level of low rent it does not matter. you're better off renting. And Europeans have actual pension systems, we are nowhere near as reliant on real estate always appreciating in value.

mschuster91 13d ago

Most of the affected housing used to be government owned, sold at firesale prices after the CDU Diepgen government thoroughly wrecked the state finances with a banking scandal at the end of the 90s. The large investor landlords purchased the homes and often didn't even do the bare minimum in upkeep. The real estate nevertheless appreciated massively because of Berlin getting more and more popular. It therefore makes sense to nationalize this housing stock, and I'd see a value comprised of "original purchase price, upkeep and inflation-plus-3%-tied appreciation" as fair value. Maybe even less because they extracted 20 years worth of rent payments from the properties already.

IshKebab 13d ago
I don't know if that's really fair though because it's unlikely that the people that benefited from the fire sale are still the owners. It would make more sense just enforce maintenance standards and improve renters rights. You can't really legislate supply & demand.
- 698969 13d ago
  Still the same companies Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia but I agree with the second part. Their yearly profits are capped because of the Mietpreisbremse (rent control) law since all the old buildings that they bought would fall under it, so it would've been better to put the money towards either building new state-owned housing or helping the tenants enforce their rights. The laws are there to protect tenants against neglect from the landlord but enforcement takes multiple months which is not a reasonable timeline if you have a problem in your apartment and the consequences for landlord are mostly just reducing the rent for that time by a certain percentage which doesn't make a difference if the rents are already cheap because of the Mietpreisbremse, so it would also be good to introduce fines but not sure if Germany's legal framework allows for that.
tirant 13d ago
The reality is that the actual large-scale sell-off of public housing was carried out under the SPD–PDS (now The Left) red-red coalition led by Klaus Wowereit in 2004. for prices of around 30.000€ per unit.

bmacho 13d ago

[edit - deleted]

backhold 13d ago
With the disclaimer that I am neither German nor familiar with the policy under discussion, Confiscation with (some) remuneration is still confiscation. Is your comment satirical?
- deleted 13d ago
  [deleted]

monegator 13d ago

Given it affects PE funds that have gouged up all the supply, yes that is sound logic. My province's capital has 43% of unhinabitated houses. They are not even on the market, as we are in a housing crisis. Vast majority of them are property of large housing groups that are backed by black rock and company. The same firms are manouvering the politicians to get approvals to build modern monstruosities, because there is a housing crisis, but they build only luxury homes thst cost too much and remain unhinabitated. Yes it is sound logic to force big conglomerates to dissolve by law. Law should aim for the public good.

m4xp 12d ago
There should be huge taxes on empty houses. This breaks the supply demand price negotiation, if they can gauge price by 2x they dont care if they rent half the houses.
- Helmut10001 12d ago
  Such a law existed in San Francisco since 2022 and it was just cancelled by court order. The problem is: there are so many edge cases for empty apartments that it is impossible to account for. In Berlin, e.g., just imagine all the empty apartments in 10 years because no one wants to rent unrenovated, uninsulated apartments because of energy prices. The landlord cannot pay renovation. Forcing landlords to pay an empty apartment penalty doesn't help here.
  - scarecrowbob 12d ago
    I am not a capitalist, but isn't that the kind of problem that capitalism would solve? Wouldn't the landlords would just take a loss and sell the property to avoid penalties?
    - Helmut10001 12d ago
      If there is no business model and no one wants to pay, what then? We'd have a lot of vacant properties that would need to be renovated by the city. We see this in lots of places in Germany already, where there simply aren't buyers (because of demographics, primarily). Further, if you devalue properties with such a law, then you'd have a credit/dept property - landlords couldn't pay their dept, if property prices devalue by state law. Lastly, no one would build properties anymore under such a law. .. Cities also rely quite a bit on property and real estate transfer taxes. By reducing property values, cities destroy their own tax base while needing lots of additional money to renovate state-acquired, vacant properties.