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Far-left party wins Berlin election, pledging to nationalise housing

72 points · 152 comments · theanonymousone

soonnow · 1789971698 · focus · HN ↗
To add a b it of context. They do not want to confiscate housing. They do want to pay landlords, though below current (very high) rates. Also this would only apply to private real-estate companies not individual owners.
And they can't govern alone, so I think it's unlikely that this plan is actually implemented as originally planned. The likely coalition would contain 3 parties.
1. aurareturn · 1789974034 · focus · HN ↗
  They do want to pay landlords, though below current (very high) rates.
  In San Francisco, NIMBYs secretly support laws like this. This basically guarantees that many builders will do the math and conclude that it doesn't make sense to build housing in San Francisco.
  New large condo buildings have to sell 30% of the units at below market rate. This causes many viable projects to never get built.
  So laws like this are sold to renter voters as a way to lower housing costs, but NIMBYs secretly love it. Over time, renters pay more in rent because there is less supply due to builders not building. However, a lucky few renters who were here early will get below market rents.
  Perfect examples of voters voting for a short term fix but pay more in long term. And voting for themselves while screwing future renters.
  1. vrganj · 1789974268 · focus · HN ↗
    The fix is for the city to be the builder, like it is in Vienna.
    The City of Vienna is the largest landlord in Europe. It is also the only major European capital without a rent cost crisis.
    MrMember · 1789986346 · focus · HN ↗
    The fix is to let the companies who want to build, build. For some reason a lot of cities won't support new construction if a private company might make a profit on it.
    blahblaher · 1789986648 · focus · HN ↗
    Most private construction is dedicated to luxury condos because that's where the big money is. If you let the "market" decide on its own it will always decide on the most profitable items, even if that's not what is needed.
    aurareturn · 1789992192 · focus · HN ↗
    Define "needed". Those luxury condos will still have people living in them whether it's a renter or owner.
    vrganj · 1789993777 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, that's what a democracy should be used to decide, since people might have different things they want to optimize for.
    Personally, I believe Berlin has more issues with a lack of affordable housing than with a lack of luxury condos.
    bluecalm · 1789994600 · focus · HN ↗
    Adding luxury housing helps with supply of affordable housing. Just a few citations I quickly googled: <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119021000656" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00941...
    <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009411902...
    <a href="https://archive.is/2026.02.23-212725/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/housing-crisis-rich-poor-building/686086/" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/2026.02.23-212725/https://www.theatlantic...
    vrganj · 1789998776 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm sure it does, to some extent that is <100%. But the real limit in a city is land. If we want to use it efficiently, we should check what we want to optimize use of that resource for.
    IMO, in Berlin the most lacking thing is the supply in affordable housing, so it makes sense to optimize for that directly instead of a side effect of some other optimization.
    Why not build something like Alt-Erlaa? [0] [1]
    Cities can just build stuff. And if private developers are not as incentivized to invest, that makes it cheaper for the city to do so itself. As somebody from Vienna, it's crazy to me this is even up for debate.
    [0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterlaa" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterlaa [1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxuACFQBwxs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxuACFQBwxs
    bluecalm · 1790017261 · focus · HN ↗
    >> But the real limit in a city is land.
    I am not sure how it is in Berlin. I haven't visited in a while. I think it's too general an assessment though. In many cities the limit is not land but permits - both being permitted to build at all and then build high enough.
    >>Cities can just build stuff. And if private developers are not as incentivized to invest, that makes it cheaper for the city to do so itself. As somebody from Vienna, it's crazy to me this is even up for debate.
    I hear a lot of good things about housing in Vienna. Are those city build apartments readily available for anyone? The problem with public housing when I am from is that it turns the city population into lucky few who get access and the rest who not only have to subsidize it but then need to buy on private market themselves.

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