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Comment by rbehrends | Hacker News Reader

There is no rent cap in Germany. The article is wrong.

Germany has only "soft" rent controls that limit YOY increases in rent and (selectively) increases in rents when changing tenants.

German economic orthodoxy relies very much on the need to build housing in order to deal with housing shortages and with rising rents due to housing shortages. The "soft" rent controls simply buy time to get housing projects underway. Without new housing being built, rents would still reach market levels, it would just take a bit longer.

Berlin's current problem is excessive urbanization driven by migration (1) from the neighbouring comparatively poor East German states and (2) of foreigners who speak only English and hence prefer a city that has already evolved to accommodate English speakers. Various and sundry NIMBY problems where locals oppose new housing projects also don't help.

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> Berlin's currently problem is excessive urbanization driven by migration (1) from the neighbouring comparatively poor East German states and (2) of foreigners who speak only English and hence prefer a city that has already evolved to accommodate English speakers.

No. Berlin problems mostly stem from the city government colluding with investor scum to build luxury apartments instead of actually affordable ones plus doing their very best to e.g. kick squats out (which help keeping down rents for all neighbors). Berlin government could easily break the necks of the investors and protect the population instead, but especially the SPD has chosen not to do so - and sell off priorly city-owned prime real estate to investors.

The investors now do "Luxussanierungen" (basically, thermoclad the houses and fix the more egregious stuff like bad wiring / plumbing that the city government had neglected over decades) and price out all the lower-and-middle-income people.

Governments mainly value people as taxpayers, because taxpayers pay into the public coffers, which can then be emptied to ameliorate social disputes and ease reelection. If you don't pay taxes and do consume services at the same time, as a squatter does, you're making your leaders' lives harder and they will find a way to get rid of you.

A squatter pays his/her share of taxes: VAT on everything he/she buys, income tax on any kind of employment or other income sources.

The only tax that a squatter does not pay in contrast to an owner or renter (indirect there) is "ground tax", which is a negligible amount anyway.

There is also the opportunity cost of the owner not living in the domicile and not paying those same taxes, at probably higher amounts than the squatter. The owner is probably wealthier than the squatter and thus will pay more taxes.

Squats usually end up in houses where no one cared in any way for years and some times, like the recent short-term squat in Munich, for decades.

And the only interest which the "owners", mostly in form of offshore companies, have is to make huge amounts of money at the cost of the city, so I don't have a single tear left for them.

Are they luxury apartments because they're palatial or inherently high-cost, or because they're centrally located?

It's unlikely that there's any such thing as an actually affordable apartment in a major world city, unless we've moved the method of allocation to something like lottery or waiting list, in which case it's only affordable to a lucky few.

I would encourage anyone who thinks that luxury apartments are for the rich while single family houses are normal to consider the relative luxury of life in the actual structures (not location). You'll find that, as structures, luxury apartments are much less luxurious than lower-density uses of the same land.

NYC does the same rent caps disappeared in the 70s. They YOY percentage increase limits. One limit for lease renewals, higher one for new leases.

DC has the same rent control structure.

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