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BERLIN’S STATE CABINET has agreed on a rent freeze for five years to counter rising rents in one of Germany’s hottest real estate markets.
The German news agency dpa reported that Berlin’s left-wing coalition government wants to freeze the rent for apartments that were built before 2014.
Only a minority of Berliners own their homes or apartments, and rent has been rising sharply in the German capital in recent years, forcing many to move outside the city.
The city had been a low-rent mecca after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 opened the gates to the economically depressed former communist east of the city.
That gave rise to an influx of artists and others seeking a more bohemian way of life.
The proposal to freeze rents still needs state parliament approval.
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SF have been suggesting likewise for years ..
FFG like to leave it to the markets and friends…
@Willy Mc Bride: FF/FG have become full blown neoliberals… They only care about the market and letting the market look after itself.
@ObsidianShine: yes, indeed. We older folks refer to them as Thatcherites.
@Brendan Greene: Yep Thatcherism/Reaganism all Neoliberalism.
@Willy Mc Bride: Say you do put a cap on rent for 10 years. Will that build the 1000s of houses needed for the market?
People are falling for the same trick of the government that they keep running on us. During Irish water crisis it was those who get everything free against those who pay all the taxes. now its landlords v’s people.
The governman built 70 houses across the councils last year – just 70. How does that solve the issue? We need 1000s.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: One can recognise that new housing is badly needed and that we need a return to en masse building of public housing by local authorities, *AND* that with certain things, housing being one of them, charging the absolute maximum that “the market” allows you to get away with is fundamentally immoral and shouldn’t be allowed by law. A rent cap won’t solve the problem of people finding it difficult to find a new place to move in to when they’re homeless, moving to a rent pressure zone or moving from one place to another, but it *will* solve the problem of people *already* living in rental accommodation having their quality of life decimated by soulless, greedy leeches who have absolutely no sense of civic or social responsibility.
@Wheresmyjumper: jesus lads shut up. Did you watch any of the show on BBC. Thats the tip of iceberg. Yes Sinn Fein in 2019 standards werent great. What were we supposed to do up here really give me one suggestion.SDLP tried peaceful me and were just straight out ignored. We were literally being slaughtered in our homes by loyalist gangs funded by the british government.that is a fact. We see how the brits treat the DUP and they are supposed to be friends.
@Patrick FitzGerald: No argument but if the government did their job and provide proper housing, then there wouldn’t be a market for greedy leeches on both side of the rental market.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Absolutely no argument there for me. There wouldn’t be a crisis for people to take advantage of if our political system hadn’t followed the US and UK off the edge of the neoliberal cliff at the end of the 1980s. I will say that people blaming the local authorities are possibly being unfair, as various councillors have directly stated that when it comes to the latest controversy, the O’Devaney Gardens redevelopment off the North Circular Road in Dublin, the council wants to build more social housing but the Fine Gael central government refuses to allow them to. It would seem that the same was true under Fianna Fail during the 2000s – councils were held hostage to a “sell half of your land to the developer, or get no funding at all for the project” policy from the government.
@Patrick FitzGerald: the problem is it’s not very neo-loberal. It is in the sense that they cut public spending on housing but in terms of allowing the market to meet the demand they’ve done nothing that I can think of.
How hard is it to get planning permission in this country. Look at all the regulations required to build (I’m not saying all these should be done away with). We’re allergic to building up.
It’s not a neo-liberal free market, it’s a managed market and it’s being managed poorly.
Ha ha ha Ooooooh Germany!.. will you ever learn? You see…What you’re supposed to do is keep ignoring it, say this like “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” and convince the people that it’s only the mooching welfare cheats that can’t afford the rising rents.
no chance ….In ireland we only ever use things that happen in other parts of Europe to justify increasing prices or introducing new taxes – we are genius at ignoring any best practice in other parts of Europe that would actually benefit or improve ordinary people’s everyday lives.
So theoretically, if they were to bring the same thing in here…
It’d be only fair to freeze mortgages and for all freezes to be two way – all payments relating to housing are frozen at the point they’re at now for five years.
Can’t go up, can’t go down. Everyone knows where they stand for the next five years.
Sounds great.
What happens at the end?
@Sequoia: well that kills any chance of people who are on edge maintaining payments. Interest rates fluctuate, can go down. Rents are artificially inflated. Fixing rents has knock on effects for interest rates anyway, since it devalues rental property investment by eliminating growth potential, so in theory it should contribute to stabilising high interest rates anyway, as long as banks are properly regulated and not profiteering which is unlikely here
Our politicians in the last few fays have proven they are useless people, if we couldn’t copy England we would fked
Lobbyists dont exist in Ireland supposedly
Home ownership in Ireland at 67% is much higher than Germany 51%. So rent increase have a much bigger effect. Wanting to buy a house is at at odds with what most Europeans want.
have your say