As much as I can sympathise with the predicament, this decision, and the Berlin housing market in general, absolutely baffles me.
When I moved here I was warned of 100 people turning up to a flat viewing, and laughed it off as some hyperbole. Only later did I find out that it actually happens, albeit the maximum viewing I went to was around a meagre 50. Having come from the UK, I found the situation in Berlin to be absolutely ridiculous. There are already strict rental price limitations in place (based on location, size of the property etc.), and although these can be skirted, in general they're clearly very effective.
Again, I sympathise with city housing being very expensive, and don't believe that purely gentrified city centres are likely to be a good thing. Still, economics 101 seems to suggest that merely putting rental freezes in doesn't fix the problem. It just (as is already the case in Berlin), leads to excess demand. The solution is to build houses, but what kind of investor is going to throw their money at Berlin, where their opportunity to make a return on their investment is severely hampered? I just don't understand this stance at all.
When I moved here I was warned of 100 people turning up to a flat viewing, and laughed it off as some hyperbole. Only later did I find out that it actually happens, albeit the maximum viewing I went to was around a meagre 50. Having come from the UK, I found the situation in Berlin to be absolutely ridiculous. There are already strict rental price limitations in place (based on location, size of the property etc.), and although these can be skirted, in general they're clearly very effective.
Again, I sympathise with city housing being very expensive, and don't believe that purely gentrified city centres are likely to be a good thing. Still, economics 101 seems to suggest that merely putting rental freezes in doesn't fix the problem. It just (as is already the case in Berlin), leads to excess demand. The solution is to build houses, but what kind of investor is going to throw their money at Berlin, where their opportunity to make a return on their investment is severely hampered? I just don't understand this stance at all.