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The red-red-green Berlin coalition is serious: On Friday, Building Senator Katrin Lompscher presented the key points for the planned Mietendeckel. The Berlin Senate wants to freeze the rents in the capital for five years.
The reasons are obvious: rents in the capital are rising much faster than incomes - and other policy attempts to contain rents have failed so far. Also the rental price brake.
In recent years, rents in Berlin have risen dramatically. As everywhere in the republic, price drivers are: extremely low interest rates, which lead buyers to pay excessive prices. Complicating matters in the Berlin case: Every year around 40,000 people are attracted, and at the same time the number of social housing in the capital has halved since the beginning of the millennium to 100,000.
The idea of the Mietendeckel itself actually comes from the SPD. Radical plans have left Left-politician Lompscher to the files. Last weekend, a draft from her home had become known, the Mietobergrenzen of almost eight euros for newer apartments provided, a good six euros for old apartments from before 1945 - across the country. That would have meant reductions in large parts of the 1.6 million rental apartments in Berlin. The average price at which Berlin apartments are offered, according to the Investment Bank Berlin 2018 already at 10.70 euros per square meter.
Five years rest
The new plan hardly provides for any further cuts in rent, but brings a majority of Berlin's tenants and tenants at least five years rest before further rent increases. The maximum rent for new lettings should be up to 9.80 euros per square meter, based on the rent index for 2013. It is only expected in exceptional cases, rent increases if the rent is too high and also exceeds 30 percent of household income.
Are you celebrating as a tenant now? Do you even want to move to Berlin? Or, as a homeowner, do you curse the idea of renting lids as socialism and consider selling your property in the capital? Chamber. Whether tenant or landlord - this is what your options for action look like:
Old securities for tenants
As a tenant in Berlin you just wait. No rent increases for five years, that sounds great. And tenant protection in Germany is primarily grandfathering. In fact, even rent increases in major cities have recently been only half as high as the increase in purchase prices. Almost the guarantee for your small ownership - an affordable apartment. In the time before the fall of the Wall, Hildegard Knef sang the appropriate song: "I still have a suitcase in Berlin" - at that time in West Berlin, the rent was binding on old buildings.
Even if the apartment is actually too big, the financial pressure will not increase any more. You do not have to move immediately.
Your situation will not be much improved if the apartment is to become larger or if you want to move to Berlin. A rental cover helps those who are in it. A Mietenteckel but also strengthens the two-class society between old residents of Prenzlauer Berg, in Kreuzberg or Charlottenburgs on the one hand and newcomers from the Rhineland, Stuttgart or Damascus. Cheap apartments are passed on in the family, not abandoned.
A glance at Vienna raises awareness of the problem: in Austria's capital Vienna, 45 percent of the apartments are owned by the city or by cooperatives. The urban housing company Wiener Wohnen manages 200,000 apartments with dream rents, often under five euros. But nobody gives up the apartment, new tenants who can move in, there are not even 2000 a year.
New risks for landlords
As a landlord in Berlin you breathe deeply. And then you wait to see if the rental cover is actually decided for 2020. The discussion is of course hot this week before the state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony.
A financial problem, especially those who have bought expensive and now want to or have to sell. The resale value of your property will be lower than you thought. At Finanztip we have always said that purchase prices of 25 annual net rents are barely acceptable. 100 square meters of old building to 300,000 euros (25 annual net rents of 10 euros per square meter) were acceptable, but many have bought more expensive, for 400,000 or even 500,000 euros.
It may be that the influx of well-heeled newcomers to the capital is so great that prices are not falling sharply, and it may be that concerns about such policies are so great among investors that price reductions are high.
Anyone who has just bought is potentially faced with another problem. He has gotten 350,000 euros loan four years ago, but now the bank may not calculate the value of the property with 500,000 but only 400,000 euros. The next rescheduling becomes more expensive because the risk of the bank increases. Two-tenths of a percent more interest than a risk premium costs more than € 3,000 extra for a € 300,000 loan in 10 years.
Preliminary conclusion
Until it is clear what the lid looks like, reasonable Berlin tenants will not budge. Landlords will calculate if they can sit out the project rental cover in case of doubt. Buying or building new apartments in Berlin will, until a decision in the question is reasonably nobody first. That would then have to do the city and its public developers themselves. Maybe that's part of the plan as well.
And in the rest of the Republic, tenants and homeowners will continue to be fascinated or shake their heads and look at the experiment. Finally, fast-rising rents and housing shortages are also there. From Wagenknecht to Seehofer, from the Left Party to the CSU, politicians have already positioned themselves.
However, a significant difference remains. Outside of Berlin, the ratio of tenants and people who own their own four walls is not 85:15 but rather 50:50, in Saarland even 35 to 65.