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Berlin to vote on radical idea to fight housing crisis

2021-07-01T12:10:00-04:00

Berlin is to hold a referendum on a grassroots proposal that would force major property companies to sell thousands of their apartments to a public-owned body. A public petition for the idea, fueled by anger over surging housing prices, has gathered 183,711 valid signatures, which is more than the 172,000 required to put the question to a public vote in the city.

The idea, proposed by the “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co." initiative, would target companies with more than 3,000 apartments in their portfolio, and would likely see more than 240,000 homes placed under a public agency that would be required to administer the homes “democratically, transparently, and in the public interest.”

The campaign comes after rising anger in the German capital over the cost of housing. More than 80% of Berlin’s 3.7 million residents are renters, rather than homeowners. Property prices in the city have risen by nearly 85% between 2007 and 2019, driven by the capital’s attractiveness to investor...

Berlin's progressive rent-freeze and building expropriation movement gains steam

2020-02-05T15:25:00-05:00

Beginning in early 2020, Berlin’s left-leaning government will freeze rents for five years. Landlords will be required to show new tenants the most recent rental contracts to prove they aren’t jacking up prices. They’ll also have to follow new rent-cap rules, which for many landlords could mean lowering rents by as much as 40%. Those who don’t comply will be hit with fines as high as €500,000 ($553,000) for each violation.

Writing in Bloomberg Businessweek, Caroline Winter and Andrew Blackman cover the fascinating political battle taking place in Berlin, Germany, where tenants' groups and landlords are navigating the impacts of recent rent-freeze regulations by the local government that aim to reign in unaffordable rents in the city.

The freeze is being complimented with an aggressive apartment building buy-back program that will remove housing units from private control, placing the homes under public ownership. Berlin is currently growing by over 40,000 new residents every year and faces a housing shortfall that, when coupled with rampant speculative investment, threatens to turn yet another affordable city into an expensive enclave for international finance.

NYC apartment sales soften as rent control spooks investors

2019-07-18T16:50:00-04:00

In the first half of 2019, New York City apartment building sales fell 48% from the same period a year earlier, B6 said in a report. It was the biggest decline for any six-month period in data going back to 2009. In northern Manhattan, which includes Harlem, the drop in multifamily purchases led to a 61% slide in all commercial-property transactions, the firm said.

Across New York City, as the effects of the New York State's recently-enacted rent control laws begin to take shape, apartment building owners are having a tough time finding investors to purchase their properties.

According to Bloomberg, apartment building sales are down nearly 50-percent for the first half of 2019 over the prior year.

“Right now, it’s a shot in the dark on the multifamily side,” Adrian Mercado, chief information officer at B6 Real Estate Advisors, told Bloomberg, adding, “People are speculating as to what buildings should be trading at.”