International To Fight Rising Rents, Berlin Considers Expropriating All Landlords With More Than 3000 Apt. Units

[KOQ24]

Berlin has been governed by Leftist parties seemingly forever.
Their first rent control law didn't do shit (as most experts predicted) and this is their last resort.

Investors/speculators are doing their part in ramping up the prices by only building luxury apartments and ridiculous price hikes of slightly renovated aprtments.


If you're working class and dont wanna live in the Ghetto areas,you have to move out of the city.
Living on the land is much better anyway.

-less SJWs
-less Muslims
-barely any crime
-dark skies at night
-no eternal background noise

 

[Arkain2K]

Germany’s home front: Berlin revolts against big private landlord
Campaign to expropriate Deutsche Wohnen gathers steam as rising rents fuel anger
Guy Chazan in Berlin | March 21, 2019

Nearly 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Michael Prütz thinks Germany’s capital city is ready for a new socialist revolution.

An insurance broker by day, Mr Prütz is one of the leaders of a bold campaign to expropriate Berlin’s biggest residential landlord, Deutsche Wohnen, and take its 110,000 flats into public ownership.

“We tenants of Berlin are under attack from greedy property companies that seek maximum profit with minimum effort,” he said, accusing Deutsche Wohnen of acting “as if it is California during the Gold Rush”.

Mr Prütz and his comrades plan a city referendum where voters will be asked to back a plan to “socialise” around 200,000 flats, most belonging to DW. Next month they start collecting signatures to support the initiative, which has been fuelled by widespread anger at soaring rents. A January poll in the Tagesspiegel newspaper found 55 per cent of Berliners were in favour of expropriation.

DW thinks the idea is so radical as to be “legally unenforceable”. “You have to look at what this means for Germany and Europe,” said chief operating officer Lars Wittan. “We are essentially saying goodbye to the market economy and replacing it with a different system, be it socialism or communism.”

Regardless of the initiative’s chances of success, it has sent a chill through the investment community. “Everyone knows that a step like that would completely burn Germany’s reputation as a stable business environment,” said Jörg Schwagenscheidt, head of PMM Partners, a property-focused asset management firm.

Read the rest at:
https://www.ft.com/content/9afdc6b4-4bd8-11e9-bbc9-6917dce3dc62

 

[bobgeese]

 

[surrealworlds]

This seems insane to me as an american. So if i build up a real estate business, bust my ass and get to where i have 3,000 units, the government would just take them away? How does that work? What about my employees? What about my income from those properties?

This concept makes zero sense to me. Someone please explain like im 5.

 

[Arkain2K]

Seems like a logical thing to do. Except 3,000 feels too high. Would think something like 10 or 15 would be appropriate.

Errr...so if a single apartment building like the one in the OP have 50 units in it, you would actually propose that it must have 5 different owners?

That's not logical. That's batshit crazy. Who the hell would invest their money to build multi-units apartment complex then?

 

[BAM]

This seems insane to me as an american. So if i build up a real estate business, bust my ass and get to where i have 3,000 units, the government would just take them away? How does that work? What about my employees? What about my income from those properties?

This concept makes zero sense to me. Someone please explain like im 5.

The government would force the private owner to sell the properties to it, likely at market value. The government would then be in need of many social housing managers to hire away the private owners employees (property managers and admin staff). As for the private owner's income, SOL. Reinvest into a new project or rest on your millions I suppose.

 

[BAM]

I'm curious to see how this goes. Australia has it's own housing problem due to things like negative gearing for property investors, which seems to be finally getting cracked down on causing property values to fall in Victoria and New South Wales. Maybe less people will go into property investment and the market can open up for first home buyers.

 

[Bobby 3 Sticks]

There are people that owns 3,000 apartment units? WTF?

Happens in the US too


This is an overall interesting discussion . Since the global financial crisis individuals are less likely to buy homes meaning more renters . Also since GFC, there have been less big time landlord developers (stateside at least). Also since GFC lots are still hurting wage wise making it difficult to keep up with rising costs .

This creates a unique problem where it's definitely not a favorable market for renters but people need a place a live . Obviously landlords aren't going to budge on cost . I'm not sure using the US equivalent of eminent domain is the right call.

 

[surrealworlds]

The government would force the private owner to sell the properties to it, likely at market value. The government would then be in need of many social housing managers to hire away the private owners employees (property managers and admin staff). As for the private owner's income, SOL. Reinvest into a new project or rest on your millions I suppose.

Well thanks for explaining. Still seems crazy. Does anyone actually think this is a good idea?
Seems like a great way to signal to the world that German investments are not safe.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

Errr...so if a single apartment building like the one in the OP have 50 units in it, you would actually propose that it must have 5 different owners?

That's not logical. That's batshit crazy. Who the hell would invest their money to build multi-units apartment complex then?

I was thinking about owned units as opposed to apartment buildings.

 

[BAM]

Well thanks for explaining. Still seems crazy. Does anyone actually think this is a good idea?
Seems like a great way to signal to the world that German investments are not safe.

I don't know if it's a good idea or not, there needs to be a lot of research done on this first.

But, I am not opposed to social housing if done right.

The vibe I get from this forum is that posters take sweeping generalised positions towards problems or policies in the world as if every country is America. What doesn't work in America might work in Germany and vice versa.

 

[panamaican]

Rent control legislation has been introduced Germany wide in 2015, but there are ways around it, e.g. by renovating. Also, there are no effective sanctions.

Are there mandatory low income housing guidelines?

In the U.S., a frequent policy attempt was requiring that developers using government grants set aside a percentage of housing for lower income residents among their development projects. The developers fucked this process by concentrating the low income housing in single areas instead of as part of their primary projects creating many inner city poverty concentrations that could be ignored by later economic development.

But that might work elsewhere with better written laws and enforcement.

 

[panamaican]

Errr...so if a single apartment building like the one in the OP have 50 units in it, you would actually propose that it must have 5 different owners?

That's not logical. That's batshit crazy. Who the hell would invest their money to build multi-units apartment complex then?

A lot of people.

50 units aren't that many and having multiple owners would also mean spreading the risk among the multiple owners. Additionally, crowdsourcing real estate investment dollars is pretty popular these days so it's probably not that difficult to find the multiple owners or the investment dollars. Worst case scenario, the real money would simply stake the multiple owners the cash for a significant ROI on the finished project and still make bank.

It would be interesting to see how it would play out.

 

[superpunch]

Prices are driven by demand and supply.

I see a huge but short 3 story building with a metric fuck ton of undeveloped land in that picture.

Want to lower rent? Make a bunch of 10-50 story frames and fill them with concrete on that open land. Replace the existing 3 story apartments with the same structures. Bam -- like 10,000 nice apartments in 3 weeks. Rinse, repeat. Then everyone's rent gets cut to like 20% of what they're paying right now.

I'm in a place right now where they do that and I live in a great apartment. The rent is like $300. It's in a first world country, in a huge mega city, where people, including laborers (this isn't a 3rd world mega city hiring cheap labor from its rural areas), make as much money as they do in the US or Germany. The difference is that the building codes for residence/ business zoning and building types (skyscrapers, stories, etc) are super relaxed instead of super restrictive. The safety codes are super strict though, just like over there.

American cities are all like "oh you can't build apartments in the same blocks as restaurants! No houses next to churches or schools! oh you can't build more than 3-4 stories in residential areas! No building next to stores! oh you need to get x amount of signatures from people already living in the area! It has to made out of the same materials and be the same style as the historic buildings around the area! blah blah blah" .

None of that BS here. So, you get gigantic, safe buildings springing up in like 3 weeks everywhere.

In the US or Europe, rent in a place like I'm living in the location I'm living in right next to a metro station would be like $2000. But it's just $300 here.

 

[KOQ24]

Prices are driven by demand and supply.

I see a huge but short 3 story building with a metric fuck ton of undeveloped land in that picture.

Want to lower rent? Make a bunch of 10-50 story frames and fill them with concrete on that open land. Replace the existing 3 story apartments with the same structures. Bam -- like 10,000 nice apartments in 3 weeks. Rinse, repeat. Then everyone's rent gets cut to like 20% of what they're paying right now.

I'm in a place right now where they do that and I live in a great apartment. The rent is like $300. It's in a first world country, in a huge mega city, where people, including laborers (this isn't a 3rd world mega city hiring cheap labor from its rural areas), make as much money as they do in the US or Germany. The difference is that the building codes for residence/ business zoning and building types (skyscrapers, stories, etc) are super relaxed instead of super restrictive. The safety codes are super strict though, just like over there.

American cities are all like "oh you can't build apartments in the same blocks as restaurants! No houses next to churches or schools! oh you can't build more than 3-4 stories in residential areas! No building next to stores! oh you need to get x amount of signatures from people already living in the area! It has to made out of the same materials and be the same style as the historic buildings around the area! blah blah blah" .

None of that BS here. So, you get gigantic, safe buildings springing up in like 3 weeks everywhere.

In the US or Europe, rent in a place like I'm living in the location I'm living in right next to a metro station would be like $2000. But it's just $300 here.

Problem is that many big investors are sitting on that undeveloped, valuable land for speculation purposes.

 

[superpunch]

Problem is that many big investors are sitting on that undeveloped, valuable land for speculation purposes.

Land is privately owned and speculated on here too. So, that's bullshit. It's just illegal to build mass, quality housing for affordable prices in American and European cities.

 

[SleepyBoy]

Move to the suburbs

That's what the rest of us do who can't afford to live in the city

 

[Mcountry]

3000 units?

That sounds like that would target 1 or 2 people?

 

[Rematch]

lol wait, so are these immigrants poor no good evil swine who contribute nothing to the economy, or are they gentifying neighborhoods and causing inflation because of their economic participation?
Bahahaha you damn hate-trolls will cry about any topic and contradict yourself if it means getting a chance to blame immigrants for a second.

Ever heard of the well-known economic model supply-and-demand? Apparently not.

 

[3DayFunk]

Fucking Nazis never learn