- "Normal" people working in Berlin can afford it (e.g. prices are still below e.g. Munich but you ear much more in Munich).
- You are not forced to spent so much money on housing that you not can't really afford anything else.
- We are speaking about apartments available now, there are a lot of people with older rental contracts which as such still pay much lower rents. (I.e. the price of entering a new rent contract is basically always noticeable above the average rent price, often as much as legally possible).
You can totally have "unaffordably" priced housing and high occupancy, because housing is in general not a think people can choose to "simply not have".
Also if you decrease the supply of "affordable" housing and make the remainder more expansive you totally can have an effect where occupancy stays high and people and up on the street (decrease the supply => convert rented apartments to owned ones, which don't count into "rented apartments occupancy").
So what you see is:
- More WGs i.e. people sharing a apartment and the rent, and this is not just young people.
- A lot of "natives" moving away from Berlin.
- A lot of rented Appartments being converted to owned ones, some being actually used other not.
- A lot of people with non-high wage jobs spending so much money on rent that they have no money left to put aside for emergencies and potentially even have to cut corners in their daily live.
- Some more wealth people coming to Berlin.
One major difference to some of the more expensive cities in Germany is that people people tend to earn
much less money and thinks like "moving to a cheaper metro area around Berlin" are often not really viable (as there isn't that much to move to, it might actually be more expansive then living in Berlin it also is legally seen another German state and commute times can become a problem, too. I mean they can be a problem in-side of Berlin, it's a pretty wide city.)
I understood, but the claim "unaffordable" makes no sense because obviously, there are enough people that can afford it. But yes, low-income households have more and more difficulties making ends meet when the prices rise.
The issue is that Germany does not have a housing crisis, there are at least 600k uninhabited housing units. Yes, those are mostly rural and especially in the former GDR. Usually you get a commission if you FIND somebody willing to rent long-term.
People are drawn into cities, especially Berlin has become "hip" - even though the job market is not even close to Munich or Stuttgart. So I think (and most people I know who moved there) people move for the lifestyle. I am pretty mad at the Berlin government now using taxpayers money to buy back pricy appartments - especially since Berlin is one of the poorest states in Germany and heavily subsidied by the other states (through "Länderfinanzausgleich"). And this will in no way help with the high demand/low supply problem, that actually exists.
> "unaffordable" makes no sense because obviously, there are enough people that can afford it.
Doesn't mean thinks didn't become unaffordable for other people. If a lot a people which grow up do or are considering leaving because they can't afford rent it's a social problem.
> The issue is that Germany does not have a housing crisis, there are at least 600k uninhabited housing units.
Just because there are housing units in some places doesn't mean there is no housing crisis. Because what point are housing units in the wrong places.
Because what point is a housing unit in a area where there is no work, no hospitals (close by), no supper market (close by), no public transport (which goes frequently), no restaurants, bars or people to meet, probably bad internet, etc.
I mean if that places would be nice countryside nature places it might be interesting, but they often aren't even that. They often are areas where in the past there had been a lot of manual work (car industry, coal mining, heavy industry, etc.) and it went away, as well as small villages.
> People are drawn into cities
Often out necessity, due to the points mentioned above.
> One major difference to some of the more expensive cities in Germany is that people people tend to earn much less money
I don't know. According to a somewhat recent study[1], Berlin is pretty average, only 10-20% below e.g. Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg (where the rents for comparable flats in the larger cities tend to be much higher than in Berlin, and not just 10-20%, while cost of living (utilities, meals, services) is generally 10-20% lower in Berlin).
It's true that the current prices do get obscured by looking at averages, especially in Berlin where old contracts are absurdly cheap. Comparing the usual real-estate sites in Germany (granted, most markets aren't exactly showing many offers, so it's always a small sample, but it remains the same over time), you'll find that Berlin's rents are still considerably lower than those in Hamburg, Munich, Dusseldorf etc. Berlin is in a very special situation in Europe in that the capital of the country is not anywhere close to being the most expensive population center.
As for "natives" moving out of Berlin: not so sure either, many Berliners weren't born in Berlin, but that has been going on for the longest time (it's been a thing a hundred years ago, has settled during the GDR, and has been reignited in the last two decades; today, slightly over half of Berlin residents were not born in Berlin). It's a city where young people move to study and party and then stay for the life style and lower cost of living. Coincidentally, these are often the same people complaining about the high rents and asking for collectivization.
Of course, the only unaffordable price is one which the market will not bear. Any price at which a market transacts is by definition affordable.
And herein lies the issue: everyone wants to live in Berlin, but not everyone can live in Berlin. Price is the mechanism by which we determine who values living in Berlin most.
You might not think it’s fair, but this is the reality.
The issue is that actually the prices are transparent and fair - at least I know and understand why I don't get an apartment that I can afford. The issue with government imposed rent control/caps is, that now instead of 50 applicants for an apartment which is priced at market rate, there will be 250 applicants to an appartment with capped rent - and there is no way for me to understand why I didn't get it. Do I need to be in the right party as the owner? Do I have the wrong skin color, gender, religion, country of birth to please the landlord?
High prices are only unfair at first look, but actually allocating scarce resources through market prices is a very fair and transparent mechanism.
