Berlin trendy district Mitte: Short supply, massive demand
Photo: Jens Kalaene / picture alliance / dpa
Critics, for example in the CDU, speak of a "historical stupidity", proponents of a "blessing" for many people: The Berlin rent cap is probably the strongest state intervention in the housing market since the end of socialism.
State rent ceilings have been in effect in the capital for a year now.
The interim results are mixed: While the red-red-green government alliance in the Red City Hall sees the spiral of ever higher rents broken, the real estate industry is complaining about drastic losses in income and is scaling back its investments.
With the entry into force of the so far unique law in Germany, which is initially limited to five years until 2025, rents for around 1.5 million apartments are frozen at the June 2019 level.
They may only increase again from 2022, at the current level by a maximum of 1.3 percent annually.
If an apartment is rented out again, the landlord must adhere to upper limits.
They are based on age, equipment, location and the last rent requested for the apartment.
The cover should give tenants a “breather”, says Housing Senator Sebastian Scheel (left).
Because the capital has developed into a playground for German and international real estate investors who smell good returns.
For years, rents have risen faster here than elsewhere in Germany, even if they are nowhere near the level of cities like Munich or Frankfurt.
According to calculations by the umbrella association Central Real Estate Committee (ZIA), new contract rents rose by 27 percent between 2013 and 2019.
Savings of up to several hundred euros per month
Scheel says that rents in Berlin have more than doubled within ten years without incomes keeping up.
"The construction of the rent brake has completely failed here," said the Senator, referring to a federal regulation to limit rent increases.
Since June 2015, it has enabled the federal states to identify “areas with tight housing markets”, in which landlords are then allowed to add a maximum of ten percent to the local comparable rent when new tenants move in.
The Berlin rent cap is much sharper here.
Its second stage started on November 23, 2020: rents that are more than 20 percent above the upper limits have since been prohibited by law and must be reduced by the landlord.
The Senate assumes that this will affect 340,000 apartments, the Hamburg research institute F + B estimates the number at 512,000 apartments.
Tenants can save several hundred euros a month.
According to Scheel, the vast majority of landlords adhere to the guidelines.
Others are inventive with bypass strategies.
In addition to the top rent, they agree on a higher shadow rent in the event that the law is legally overturned.
Others conclude separate rental contracts for furniture or threaten not to extend fixed-term contracts if the tenant insists on compliance with the rent cap.
Still others rely on usage instead of rental agreements.
"Most of them are simply illegal," says Scheel, referring to the threat of fines of up to half a million euros.
Hardly any reserves
While rents in almost all large cities continued to rise in 2020, they fell in Berlin, the Senator is nevertheless pleased and attributes this to the lid.
The managing director of the Berlin tenants' association, Reiner Wild, agrees.
"The rent cap has undoubtedly taken the pressure off the rental price development in existing tenancies." A decline in the rents actually paid for new rentals is also noticeable.
"A blessing," said Wild.
The side effects are considerable, however.
And they could ensure that the dramatic housing shortage in the capital will persist for a long time, even if the rent cap is abolished as promised.
Because investors have long since reoriented themselves and are building elsewhere.
The budgets for maintenance and modernization have also been reduced noticeably - not only from the tough-calculating fund companies and major landlords, but also from cooperatives that can hardly build up reserves with the rents prescribed by the Senate.
The Association of Berlin-Brandenburg Housing Companies (BBU), for example, which represents private, cooperative and municipal companies with 730,000 apartments in Berlin, estimates the loss of income of its members during the five-year period at around 900 million euros.
The association estimates the minus in investments in new buildings, modernization and climate protection at 4.5 billion euros.
Rental market frozen
The pressure on tenants to give up an apartment that is actually too large in favor of a smaller one has also decreased noticeably.
As a result, the number of people moving house has decreased significantly.
"The rent cap has dramatically increased the tense situation on the Berlin housing market," says ZIA President Andreas Mattner.
"The number of apartments offered for rent has halved within a year." On average, around 140 prospective buyers come to one apartment, which is the highest figure in Germany.
Experts also doubt that the rent cap will actually create more justice.
The well-paid head doctor benefits much more from the lower rent for his large Charlottenburg apartment in an old building than the low-income earner in a social housing estate in Weddingen.
In addition, the regulation also affects the large number of landlords who by no means fulfill the cliché of a rich rental shark.
Critics and supporters of the rent cap have one thing in common: They are looking forward to Karlsruhe.
After various lawsuits, the Federal Constitutional Court decides whether the law is legally tenable.
The date has not yet been set.
Icon: The mirror
mik / dpa