‘Fantastic!’: Berlin Votes to Expropriate 240K Apartments From Corporate Landlords

11 comments
  1. Well almost. The sobering truth is this vote has no legal meaning. The government is not obligated to follow the decision (and they probably won’t).

  2. I think it’s much more doable to heavily tax unoccupied or short term rental apartments. Cuts on the empty investment apartments at least.

  3. It’s their city, they can do whatever they want. The rest of the country should just take care not to provide any additional funds to Berlin during the state finance adjustment.

    Btw, it is very insincere calling it expropriation when it’s actually paying market prices. Real expropriation was something that existed in Soviet Union and a few other communist countries and looks entirely different.

  4. What a terrible idea. Imagine if the government instead took those billions to build social housing, then all renters would benefit from lower rents due to increased supply

  5. It‘s more of a PR stunt. It is not binding nor seems there to be any real legal foundation to enforce it. My guess is that it will be forgotten in a few weeks and then everything is business as usual. Rents will rise until there is more supply, this problem is known for decades and ignored by politics.

  6. The idea has a certain charm, but Berlin is the wrong place to test it. Highly indebted, dependent on massive transfer payments and with a partially incompetent administration, it is going against the wall and then discrediting the idea throughout Germany.

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