Rising housing costs, aggressive investors: Where the Mieterangst rules

Jana Blank packs the most important things together - because the eviction complaint, she fears, could come every day. But where she wants to go with her three daughters, the lone parent does not know. "What scares me, of course, is to lose the apartment and the existence with the three children," says the 46-year-old.

Her landlord has terminated Blank without notice after several times transferring her rent too late. But she does not find something new. Despondent, she tells of the tears of the daughters, who do not want to leave the familiar environment, school and friends. "The overall situation in the family is extremely tense," she says.

The story of Jana Blank is only one in the produced by SPIEGEL TV ZDF report "Mieterangst", which is seen this Sunday from 18 clock. The film tells of desperate tenants, tough-hired residential groups like Vonovia and foreign private investors who would like to get a piece of the booming German real estate business.

The situation in Berlin is particularly drastic - a still relatively poor city that has become the new Eldorado for real estate investors in the past ten years. In no other major German city have rents so much as here. According to calculations by the research institute empirica, a 60- to 80-square-meter apartment in Berlin in 2008 cost a reasonable 5.14 euros per square meter, in 2018 it was 9.70 euros - an increase of almost 90 percent. By comparison, in Hamburg it went up in the same period by 35 percent, in Stuttgart by 48 and in Munich by 51.5 percent.

Low earners, in particular, often fall by the wayside. Jana Blank lives in an old apartment in Berlin's Weißensee district. Their house was sold by a building cooperative to a foreign investor, who makes small apartments out of the large apartments, in order to leased them at a high price. Blank is the last old tenant. She pays around 1000 euros for 100 square meters of rent - a price for which she will hardly find an apartment of similar size in the area. "I looked in the district here, I looked in the neighboring district - it is actually hopeless to find something suitable, so for a family with children," says Blank.

DPA

Blocks of flats in Berlin

Blanken's income is already well over half of the rent - a problem that many people in Germany now know. According to data from Eurostat for 2015 (newer ones are not available), the lower 20 percent of households had to raise on average 43.3 percent of their income for rent, water and energy. Only in Hungary is this value even higher. This emerges from a recent request from the left-wing leader and member of parliament Bernd Riexinger.

285 percent rent increase in 17 years

Politicians have been trying for years to slow down the rise in rents. However, this is hardly possible, especially in cities like Berlin, where the investors' appetite for investment is particularly high. The rental price brake, which was tightened again last year, is often simply ignored, according to the Berlin Renters Association. And the laws on environmental protection, which should make it difficult for investors in certain areas to urge tenants through expensive refurbishment and other tricks from their homes, leave in the opinion of experts too many loopholes. The latest attempt by the red-red-green state government could therefore be a so-called Mietendeckel, which the Senate is currently discussing.

How bold some landlords now proceed, is also reflected in the leases. A few days ago made on the short message service Twitter, a photo of a scale rental agreement from Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg the round. Accordingly, the rent should increase from currently 1746 euros per month to 2036 to 6716 euros. 285 percent rent increase in 17 years.

This is an authentic proposal for a relay rental in Prenzlauer Berg. In Berlin, the middle class is already being forced out of the city. High time that @spdbt @cducsubt do something about it! pic.twitter.com/J6aiHCIDo3

Fortunately, those who do not depend on such a thing for the moment are lucky because they have an apartment with affordable rent. But that too is part of the problem in tight housing markets like Berlin or other big cities. Because in the past, apartments were freed up more often because the residents wanted to increase or decrease depending on their living conditions, meanwhile, many people remain in their homes as long as it is somehow possible.

Why should a retiree move out of a 100-square-meter apartment for which, thanks to an old lease, he pays only € 600 in cold rent to move to a 50-square-meter apartment that would cost at least the same price today? And some families with two children prefer to squeeze into the small three-room apartment for as long as possible, because they can no longer afford to move to a larger home. Lock-in effect experts call that.

Thus, in many places practically standstill prevails in the market. And who is dependent on finding a new apartment, it has correspondingly difficult. Especially when he has little money at his disposal - like Jana Blank and like so many other people in Berlin.

"Wohnstress - Mieterangst": You will see Ralf Wilharm's report on Sunday, March 24, at 6 pm on ZDF.