When is the revolution going to start in Germany?

10 comments

1. Then start the revolution by moving to the Erzgebirge.

2. Revolutions have to be announced 2 years in before. The next possible revolution start would also be in 2024, if you fill all the formulation correct.

3. That doesn’t sound right.

   Expensive new-build in Berlin isn’t hitting 6k/qm yet, afaik.

   Is Ingolstadt suffering some housing bubble due to AUDI, Airbus etc? Are proper houses in very short supply? What’s driving this extraordinary price?

4. I counted more than 4 rooms. Looks a nice house

5. Yes in Unterhaunstadt, this means you can walk to the AUDI factory. This is for this area are realistic price.

6. It’s supply and demand, there’s plenty “cheap” houses in remote areas. Unless your revolution is to somehow force people to move to remote areas, or to somehow build new housing quickly then it’ll probably at best take decades for it to help – if it does work at all.

7. > Offered not by some nutjob but by the local saving’s bank.

   That usually just means theyre taking care of the sale, not that they own it or make the price.

8. There is a housing crisis, this is true; but you’re looking at a house in one of the most expensive parts of Germany. Oh, and while the house has a living area of 120 m², it’s on 490 m² of land. And the house was thoroughly renovated and modernized in 2009.

   But you also have to remember that “the property ladder” isn’t really a thing in Germany. Buying a house is considered a huge investment: most people rent. There are very robust laws that protect tenants against arbitrary evictions and other sharp practices; and renting instead of buying means you’re much more flexible if you need to relocate (you’re not going to get stuck with negative equity that you can’t sell, for example).

   Sure, there are housing problems in many cities that make it difficult and expensive, particularly for young people. That’s a problem to be solved, not a reason to take to the barricades. We’ve just had an election that resulted in a new government taking charge: the ballot box is a pretty clever invention that allows us to effect regime change without bloodshed.

   Maybe just wait until this new government has a chance to address the issue? They have quite a lot on their plate at the moment.

9. > And I mean this literally. Imho it’s time for the people, not only of Germany, to take action. Shut the damn place down.

   And what would that do, exactly? Do you expect someone to wave a magic wand and all the prices to go down?

   This is the law of supply and demand. Too many people want to live in areas with too few houses/apartments. Naturally, the prices go up. They also go up because interest rates are very low, hence it’s easy for people to afford large loans – but raising them would have all sorts of other impacts which (arguably – this is quite a thorny subject) would be worse than high housing prices. And they go up because the way we built houses in the last few decades is not sustainable, and we have to do it differently going forward (so don’t start railing against environmental regulations – if we don’t get climate change under control, then house prices will be the least of your concerns). Single family housing is also a great waste of resources – that certainly doesn’t mean it needs to be banned, but we definitely need to think about better ways to offer housing to people without using *quite* so much of the space we don’t have a lot of to begin with.

   Obviously more houses/apartments need to be built, and this is happening, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Also, there are a ton of issues to be overcome if you want to do it well – do it badly end you end up with the nightmare suburban sprawl of the US.

   This is a complex problem. It requires complex solutions, and time. I wish it was different, but we live in the real world, and that’s how things are.

   Instead of advocating a simple solution to a complex problem (the only ones who delude themselves into thinking those work vote AfD), get involved in local politics to work the problem. Attend planning committee meetings. Petition your local government to relax *certain* planning regulations to ease new construction. That’s how we will solve this problem. I get that you’re angry, and anger is a perfectly normal emotion – but anger, expressed as some kind of juvenile rage against the system, will not solve this problem.

   If you need to get the stress out of your system, buy a punching bag. Give it a good pummeling for half an hour. We’ll be here when you get back, to talk about constructive options for tackling this issue. You’ll then hopefully be able to channel your anger into more productive avenue.

10. I mean you’ll find the exact same in lots of European cities. As another commenter said, it has a fair amount of land too.