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Every time the property manager writes, I open the letter with a slightly nervous shudder. Is it time now? Will the mutual fund that bought our house a few years ago now do what we have long feared: modernizing and increasing the rent? Do we have to get out?
And if so, where to go? A couple of years ago I saw a crowd outside the street, as big as if a new club had opened there, where the Beatles spontaneously perform for a reunion concert. Actually it was a flat inspection. Today I no longer see such people gathering. There are no more apartments available in our neighborhood that could be visited. If you have one, stay in it as long as you can.
The parents pay, the old ones disappear
There is no bigger topic in Berlin than the real estate market. No matter who you talk to: Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone has problems and worries.
The worries are quite different. It depends on who you are talking to. With the acquaintance from Switzerland for example. He moved here a few years ago and he likes it so much that he is looking for a condominium, or two. The parents pay one for the son, another want to rent them. Would not we have a hint where to buy? Um, not right now.
Or with the old Kreuzberg buddy. Former squatter, lived for 35 years in a 150-square-meter old apartment, with stucco and stove heating, for a monthly rent, with which you could barely spend a week in the hostel next door in a shared room today. After years of struggling with the new homeowner, he has now moved out, for a good compensation, in a small apartment a few streets away, he had already bought with his partner, when it was still possible for people who have no well-heeled parents. It was many years ago.
Half for the rent
Already clear: Existential concerns are not. And we could probably afford a higher rent, if need be. No, bigger are the worries of the people who do not talk about it. Or with whom I can no longer talk, because they are long gone from our neighborhood.
The old neighbor, whose husband was born in the apartment below us, and who could not afford the rent after his death: Unknown warped. The woman with the dog, recognizable little money, which has always greeted so friendly on the street: Not seen for months. The old lady who has paid in the bakery every morning a sweet particle with change: way. And the bakery: undressed. There's a café in there now, the fifth in our street.
Low-income earners across Germany, with household incomes of less than 1300 euros, have to spend almost half of them on their basic rent and ancillary costs. In Berlin, the burden should be even higher.
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Berlin needs more affordable housing, that's for sure. One possibility for this would be the so-called compaction, that is to build taller and narrower, and to close, for example, vacant lots and still set up floors on existing tenements. Another possibility would be to cultivate previously empty areas. But that is not easy to enforce: on the edge of the Tempelhof field, the former airport area, should once arise 4,700 apartments and commercial space. In May 2014, the people of Berlin voted against it in a referendum. The Governing Mayor wants to try again, but until further notice you can go there undisturbed on his inline skaters. Overnight camping is not allowed. Too bad for the apartment seeker.
17-fold increase in value and rent increase
A particularly blatant example of the Berlin price explosion are the tenement houses, which the then red-red Berlin Senate sold to the "Deutsche Wohnen" 15 years ago: 50,000 apartments for 405 million euros, only about 8,000 euros per apartment. Today, these properties are worth about 7 billion euros in the books. Deutsche Wohnen has to satisfy its shareholders with returns, which is helped by their rent increases. In order to be able to enforce this, she has already tried to legally suspend the Berlin rent index before the Berlin Constitutional Court.
Voice # 68 - housing shortage: Why Germany has underestimated the problem for years
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Against "Deutsche Wohnen" and other large owners with more than 3,000 apartments in Berlin is now an initiative for a new referendum: The "Deutsche Wohnen" and other real estate giants to be expropriated, or "socialized" according to Article 15 of the Basic Law. The Constitution states that "land, natural resources and means of production" can be "converted into public ownership or other forms of public service" for compensation.
Article 15 has never been applied before, so it is uncertain whether such socialization would actually endure in court. There are also different estimates of the costs: The expropriation initiative assumes a maximum of 13.7 billion euros for 200,000 apartments, the city council estimates up to 40 billion. How the city could handle the debt brake is unclear. It is clear, however, that through this socialization not a single new apartment would arise.
In the video: Tenants against Deutsche Wohnen
Signatures will be collected from April onwards to launch the referendum. They will come together, no doubt. The Berlin Chamber of Commerce President Beatrice Kramm is certainly in a guest contribution for the "Berliner Zeitung": "So far, no one has won against the market." But I would not be so sure. Look at this city.
Only one thing I would like to know: How many of those who now want to vote for the expropriation, then actually voted against the development of the Tempelhof field?