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Old Posted Feb 26, 2019, 4:34 PM
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M II A II R II K M II A II R II K is offline
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Berlin To Hold Vote On Banning Big Landlords & Nationalising Private Rented Housing

Berlin Set To Hold Referendum On Banning Big Landlords And Nationalising Private Rented Housing


February 26th, 2019

By Jon Stone

Read More: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8796471.html

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Berlin looks set to hold a referendum on banning big landlords and expropriating their homes into social housing, as part of a response to growing complaints in the German capital about the cost of living. The proposed law would bar landlords with more than 3,000 homes in their portfolio from operating in the city including the city’s biggest property company, Deutsche Wohnen AG.

- That real estate behemoth has become a favoured target of activists, who claim its business is an example of the kind of speculation which they blame for driving up rents and property values. The expropriated homes an estimated 200,000 would be covered would effectively become the German equivalent of council housing, let out at social rents in a bid to reduce the cost of living. The city, which is its own state under Germany’s federal system, has a local constitution that provides for a system of binding ballot initiatives or Volksentscheid, which allow framework for holding referenda.

- One of the activists behind the initiative told German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel that they had consulted with lawyers and constitutional experts and that the compensation for expropriations could be paid “well below the market value”. They cite a legal precedent set by the expropriation of land in Hamburg after a 1962 flood after which the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the common good sometimes required property rights to be interfered with. The left-wing Die Linke party supports the plan, as do some Greens and centre-left SPD representatives.

- The so-called red-red-green coalition in Berlin made up of those three left-of-centre parties, has made building affordable housing a priority, and is also engaged in a more modest plan to buy up private housing of its own. “In addition to the new building, we also want to see how we can make a good offer in the portfolio, and this is where municipalisation plays a role,” said Berlin's SPD mayor Michael Müller in his New Year press conference last month. In 2017 property prices in Berlin grew faster than in any other major city around the globe at 20.5 per cent, according to a ranking published last year by estate agent Knight Frank.

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Old Posted Feb 26, 2019, 4:44 PM
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Old Posted Feb 26, 2019, 5:06 PM
Jonesy55 Jonesy55 is offline
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Germany has quite a lot of big institutional landlords from what I understand, here in the UK it's mostly small private individuals with a single property or a small portfolio of a few homes.

Ironically as Berlin is voting to ban this there has been talk in the UK of trying to emulate that German model and get more big institutions like pension funds, insurance companies etc more involved in the private rental sector with the logic that they would be better at customer service by having dedicated maintenance staff etc and it would get rogue individuals who exploit tenants out of the market.
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Old Posted Feb 27, 2019, 4:21 PM
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30 years later, East Berlin finally came to West Berlin.

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Originally Posted by Jonesy55 View Post
Germany has quite a lot of big institutional landlords from what I understand, here in the UK it's mostly small private individuals with a single property or a small portfolio of a few homes.

Ironically as Berlin is voting to ban this there has been talk in the UK of trying to emulate that German model and get more big institutions like pension funds, insurance companies etc more involved in the private rental sector with the logic that they would be better at customer service by having dedicated maintenance staff etc and it would get rogue individuals who exploit tenants out of the market.
I think the US has a nice mixture. There are a lot of smaller landlords, but also a lot of relatively big REITs and big development companies as well. I am not an expert, but if Germans are lacking in smaller landlords, its probably due to some kind of regulations making it harder for people to buy investment properties.
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Old Posted Feb 27, 2019, 4:39 PM
Obadno Obadno is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K View Post
Berlin Set To Hold Referendum On Banning Big Landlords And Nationalising Private Rented Housing


February 26th, 2019

By Jon Stone

Read More: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8796471.html
LOL Germany what are you doing? Nationalization of housing is a terrible idea.
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Old Posted Feb 27, 2019, 5:16 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is offline
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I imagine that investment groups bought and manage the large apartment buildings built by the former Soviets in the former East Berlin. That has no doubt created a very unusual situation.

I have not visited Berlin but it seems like there are few small properties near the city center, meaning there are fewer chances for small-time ownership than most other cities.

In 2017 I bought vacant lots off of a dude who owns 121 single-family houses in Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi. He has a staff of 5 to take care of tenants and the houses themselves. People think that landlords just sit back and the money rolls in. That usually isn't the case.

Single-family homes are the most maintenance-intensive type of rental property to own. They are usually spread all over the place and so your staff spends a lot of time simply driving to them to show them, collect the rent, clean, do lawn care, etc.
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