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Exploding property prices in Bavaria: Mayor appalled by "Starnbergization"

2021-05-20T20:54:04.677Z


In Riegsee, the prices for land and houses have exploded in recent years. Problems have arisen that made the mayor think.


In Riegsee, the prices for land and houses have exploded in recent years.

Problems have arisen that made the mayor think.

Riegsee / Seehausen

- The man has been around the world, has lived in large cities and metropolises of millions.

Jörg Steinleitner, born in Allgäu, has felt at home in the small but beautiful Riegsee for twelve years.

There he lives with his wife and children for rent in “a 200-year-old farm that has not been renovated”.

As a Zuagroaster, he made it to mayor.

Exploding property prices: Mayor speaks out

Steinleitner (50), who works successfully as a book author when he finds time as a part-time village head, is a carer.

He wants the locals to feel comfortable in their place.

And he sees himself as the keeper of the village community.

For a long time, the world was still in order in this regard in the community, which consists of the three districts Riegsee, Aiding and Hagen as well as some hamlets and has 1200 inhabitants.

But the idyll crumbles, is ground up like boulders in a stone mill.

The erosion phenomena - Steinleiter wants to stop them, even if he cannot turn back time.

In the April issue of the village newspaper, a four-page bulletin, he wrote something like a fire letter.

Not a brilliant literary achievement, but a description of the situation under the heading “Renting out in the village - also a question of conscience”.

Riegsee: Purchase prices have risen by 150 percent in seven years - "catastrophic development"

Steinleitner calls on the owners of apartments, houses and land not only to focus on maximizing profit when renting or selling, but also to consider other factors.

“In addition to the monetary value, there is also a life value.

If we want life in our villages to remain as worth living as it is, then we must also enable normal wage earners to live here. "

With all the good will: In the past few years this has been getting worse and worse in the region around the Riegsee.

More and more are moving away - by necessity.

The figures provided by a study commissioned by the Zugspitze region do not allow any other conclusion.

The rents for newly offered apartments and houses in Riegsee increased by 27.8 percent from 2012 to 2019.

The purchase prices have even exploded.

The increase is 150 percent. “This makes our municipality the one with the highest increase in the entire district. That is a catastrophic development. ”Steinleitner calls it“ the Starnbergization of the Riegsee ”. The standard land values ​​are also in dizzying dimensions. According to Tagblatt information, 2700 euros per square meter are called for areas by the lake, 850 euros in the village, Aidling is 650 euros.

Hardly any consolation for Steinleitner that it is “much worse” in Seehausen - Riegsee is interwoven with the village through an administrative community. There, too, property prices have shot through the roof - but years ago when the moneyed Munich resident discovered the loveliness of the Staffelsee and the surrounding area and decided to live where Upper Bavaria is one of the most beautiful. If you want to build in Seehausen, you have to spend at least 1200 euros per square meter on the table, at the lake up to 3000 - there is no upper limit.

"But there is hardly any land left there," says Mayor Markus Hörmann (CSU).

According to real estate experts, those that are to be acquired are no longer freely traded, but sold to the highest bidder on the black market.

Hörmann does not use the term “Starnbergization” for the current situation - it reaches one floor higher.

He compares the Staffelsee region with the Tegernsee, where the rich and famous now prefer to stay - either in the numerous five-star hotels or the villas that nestle against the lake or the slopes.

Land prices in Bavaria are exploding - but newcomers are hardly interested in village life

In Seehausen, too, the locals are increasingly losing out. The municipality tries to counteract this and to create living space for the less solvent and well-off citizens. Which does not always work to everyone's satisfaction. “The interest is huge,” says Hörmann.

The willingness of some newcomers to participate in village life is less than the interest in a beautiful property in a wonderful natural setting.

In Riegsee, indifference seems to be more pronounced than in Seehausen.

According to Steinleitner, there are increasing complaints about the difficulty of attracting people to volunteer work in associations and "the regret that many newcomers are not interested in getting involved in our villages or do not even dare to participate".

For Hörmann, this is not a phenomenon that only applies to newcomers.

“Fewer and fewer people want to take on responsibility.” Steinleitner thinks it's a shame when you see his village as “just a backdrop”.

"We are a living space."

We need a different, creative approach

Jörg Steinleitner

After he formulated his worries clearly and drastically - "I wanted to provoke" - something has happened.

Apparently his thoughts, which he brought to the people in the village newspaper, triggered a reaction.

Zuagroaste called him and asked how they can help.

One offered to give a lecture about wolves, another a donation for the year-round curling rink, which the community, the shooting club and the sports club are building together.

Riegsee: Mayor hopes to raise awareness and start discussions

Steinleitner declined this financial offer because the money was available.

His proposal, which was accepted: the wife should bake a cake for the next village festival.

“We have a lot of experts in town who can make their knowledge available to us,” he says.

He doesn't want his request to be understood as bashing newcomers (“I'm one myself”), nor does he want to forbid the locals from getting high rents.

His aim is to raise awareness of the topic and to start a discussion that, in his opinion, should have long since taken place in the ministries.

“Legislators have to give us municipalities a tool to enable us to counteract the explosion in housing costs.

The large-scale designation of building land is clearly not the way to go.

That didn't help in the past.

We need a different, creative approach. "

By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our new, regular GAP newsletter.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-05-20

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