The German capital will become a nightmare for tenants. Your problems will deal also, and increasingly, politics. In the Irish capital, the Problem is now a veritable housing crisis.
With more than 115,000 residential and commercial real estate in Berlin, Deutsche Wohnen is by far the largest landlord in the capital. Who holds shares in the company, had in the past ten years, only little reason to worry – until a few weeks ago. News, the tarpaulin, the Berlin Senate, the Rent in the city for the next five years freeze, brought the stock to Stumble: 14 percent lost the paper of the Deutsche Wohnen, the biggest kink after ten years of seemingly unstoppable ascent.
Fear of expropriation
It was just the last skirmish in Berlin, battle of the residential property. Berlin is not a city, it is just like a rented apartment. The demand exceeds the supply by far. Rents and real estate prices in Berlin will rise and rise. In 2017, the Figures of the real estate consulting company Knight Frank, show Berlin was the city with the fastest rising real estate in the world. There is even an ever-louder call for a Referendum, powerful landlords expropriate and residential property in the social housing transfer.
Berlin should think that they have it hard, then you should take a look in the direction of the West, in the Irish capital, Dublin. The city, and on a smaller scale, the whole country is in a housing crisis, the conditions in Berlin are fading.
Exorbitant Rent
“This is the worst housing crisis we’ve ever had,” says John Bisset. He has been fighting for years for affordable housing and is currently working with a group called “Housing Action Now”.
About the Dublin real estate market true horror of the circulating stories. For tenants the situation is particularly bad. Rents in the city are currently the highest in Europe and continue to rise. The Rent may exceed even the level that they had achieved in the real-estate bubble of ten years ago. Since then, they have risen by 37 percent: a Two-bedroom apartment costs in the city more than 2000 Euro.
“The highest standards”: the luxury is when an electric kettle is part of the basic aussrattung.
Relax and look in the washing machine
Who wants to make a picture of how unaffordable Housing in the City has become, should Daft a look at Ireland’s largest property website “.ie” throw. A quite typical example, which has caused great attention, this display: is Described a “Studio” in downtown location. The Studio consists mainly of a small kitchen in the middle of a bed, directly across from the sink and washing machine. The text of the advertisement speaks of an apartment, the “meets the highest standards”. Rent: 750 Euro / month.
For Bisset the high Rents are attributable to a lack of supply of housing and on the other hand, with the “pure greed” on the part of the landlord. The difficulties which the tenants are facing are, however, only part of the problem.
Housing shortage and homelessness
The state must build according to the Bissets view of the urgent need for more social housing. Currently, about 50,000 people are alone in Dublin, on the waiting lists for social housing, while 10,000 people, including 4,000 children, are homeless. Many of them are accommodated in Hotels or in so-called “family Hubs”, which is simply overcrowded shelters are.
During the financial crisis ten years ago, Ireland’s real estate bubble burst and plunged the country into a deep recession. One of the consequences was that the housing sector in the country came virtually to a standstill. According to Bisset, the state social housing construction, which had previously been neglected, came under the wheels. “We stopped building public housing and left the field to the forces of the free market.”
In Dublin, the housing shortage is so great that thousands without shelter.
“To die, according to the laws of the market”
Bisset believes the state has enough Land to build social housing on a large scale. Finances could be state funds and grants such as from the European investment Bank (EBRD).
“But on the other hand, there is strong resistance,” he says. “Ireland is a neo-liberal, this is true for the economy as it is for the state. The political parties are connected to the model. “We live and die according to the laws of the market”, is the message, and many people have to suffer.
One Problem, many solutions
Most of the people that have to do with housing and property to agree what the main problem is: years of declining construction activity have led to the deplorable lack of housing. Regardless of whether it is rental or owner – occupied properties whether it is private or publicly funded projects. But the solution to the problem of the lack of Consensus.
Marian Finnegan, chief Economist of Ireland’s larger real estate Agency Sherry Fitzgerald, says the collapse of the real estate market ten years ago, I discourage investors, and have led to a dramatic shortage of Supply. And the Problem is ongoing. “Our investors don’t get as much Profit out of your Investment, and withdraw.”
Although more and more institutional investors flock to the Dublin real estate market, it is not Marian Finnegan quickly enough. This had had little impact on the supply side. “Although we are increasing our speed in the construction, not after we get the demand,” she says. “My current estimate is that we need to build in Ireland, 40,000 units annually. In the last year we have brought it to 17,000 in the preceding year of 14,000. This year, it could be 21.000. In Dublin last year there were 6700 new buildings with a demand of around 14,000.”
There are still houses in Dublin – but there are far too little, they are too small and they are much too expensive.
Ronan Lyons, assistant Professor of Economics at Dublin’s Trinity College, says that the reasons for the housing crisis in Dublin and the lack of Offered lie much deeper than the financial crisis: “Until the late 1980s, we had in Ireland and generally weak demand for housing. Every year, we have lost people due to Emigration. We were a net exporter of people over the centuries. Only since about 30 years, Ireland needs to learn with a growing population to deal. We meet new challenges with which other European countries already have much more experience.”
A European Problem?
Bisset is of the view that it was unreasonable to trust at the solution of housing problems on the market forces: “If we are to believe after what happened ten years ago here, still, that was not the way to solve the Problem, then this is crazy. Certain groups, the vast majority are not of this System to the advantage, but. The market regulates itself. And the ordinary people pay a high price.”
For him the key to the solution of the problem to the state, the need to contribute more. Bisset Vienna is called, as an example. This is a city with a very high standard of living, in which almost 60 percent of the tenants in the apartments lived in, the public sector. In Dublin it was not even ten percent.
Lyons, in contrast, believes this is a more diversified range of access needed: “Ireland needs urgent very many privately built rental housing, and equally urgent, government-subsidized apartments and social housing. It is not a question of either-or. It is in need of both.”
He is optimistic that Ireland will be developed eventually, once a healthy and sustainable housing system. But he also believes that the current key issue is to look into the construction costs. Especially the much-needed apartment homes are due to the high cost of building it unprofitable.
There are still houses in Dublin – but there are far too little, they are too small and they are much too expensive.
A look to Austria
In his view, a more flexible approach to city building land in Ireland needed, more built, and the land consumption could be reduced. In Ireland, a few cities are still known to prefer low houses.
He also emphasized the need for sustainable housing in favor of low-income people in need of social housing or subsidized apartments. As Bisset also Lyon looks to Austria. There is a System that allows it to bind the amount of rent to the income of the tenant and where the state would assume responsibility if the income is too low. “We need a System in which housing is affordable.”
In Berlin and Dublin, and everywhere else, auch
While Bisset is of the view that Dublin’s housing crisis has its own character, he sees Parallels to what is happening in Berlin. There, he has attended just one event, with housing activists from all over Europe to find a way have sought to coordinate their efforts and work together.
Also on the rental market, it is now only about making as much money as possible, not complaining Bisset: “The market looks according to the needs. He looks just how high the rate of return of an investment. That is the priority. And the Problem is that even in the case of apartments, the laws of the free market to rule, is not confined to Ireland – it is a European Problem. We need solutions, but we also need European solutions.”