Munich's Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) wants to use new instruments to combat high rental and real estate prices in his city. Thus Reiter advocates setting up a citizen fund, through which investors can participate in apartments, which, however, should not be leased at maximum prices.
Most recently, the City of Munich has increasingly exercised its right of first refusal, resulting in 366 apartments being given public ownership last year. "But we can not buy everything, rather, the Munich should buy back their city," said Reiter the SPIEGEL.
As a model, the local politician sees the model of housing cooperatives, which could also take over the management of collectively financed housing. The conservation statute, which enables the pre-emption, wants to extend riders to the entire Munich city area.
Munich is considered the most expensive city in Germany. Both rental and purchase prices have risen sharply over the past ten years and are at a very high level. According to a Mietspiegel evaluation for 2018 they paid there for a 65 square meter apartment in a central location and with average equipment 10.45 euros per square meter.
Federal government wants to recalculate rent levels
The rent index of a city should reflect the so-called customary local rents, which are used, for example, for the application of the rental price brake. In order to calculate these comparative rents, apartments are rated according to location, size, year of construction and equipment.
However, the calculation is controversial, because so far only new contracts or rent increases from the past four years are included. The federal government wants to change the SPIEGEL information now - and instead use the past six years. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and Minister of Justice Katarina Barley (SPD) have agreed on this.
The amendment is intended to limit the increase in rents, especially in urban areas, because the rent of existing contracts may only be increased up to this ceiling.
The tenants' association had demanded that the rents of the past ten years be used to calculate the rental rate. Especially in the Union, there had been resistance to a new calculation.
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