Rents: Strangely positive news from the housing market

Maren Kern from the Association of Berlin-Brandenburg Housing Companies (BBU) assured on Tuesday that she did not want to campaign with this. Nevertheless, just a few days before the Brandenburg state election on September 22, she praised the red-black-green state government for its cooperation – and added that the Berlin Senate is now cooperating more again. As a result of the repeated Berlin House of Representatives election in February 2023, this Senate is no longer a red-green-red one, but one in which the CDU and SPD have the say.

It should also be about success, Maren Kern begins her presentation on Tuesday. What has been achieved was impressive. A first success would be the net rents. At the end of last year, the companies grouped together in the BBU charged their tenants an average of 5.62 euros per square meter. In comparison, the average net rent in Brandenburg was 6.21 euros in mid-2022, according to the census, i.e. the data collected during a population census. At that time, the BBU rents were even cheaper. They were 5.53 euros.

“This makes it clear how tightly our companies calculate their rents out of a sense of social responsibility and thus reduce housing costs in Brandenburg,” says Maren Kern. The comparatively moderate rents are no big surprise. After all, the BBU is traditionally organized more by municipal housing companies and housing cooperatives than by private housing companies that strive for maximum profit.

Kern does have cheap rents, but there is also a downside. While BBU rents only rose by 2.4 percent last year, there was inflation of 6.5 percent and construction prices even rose by up to eleven percent. “This weak rent development at an already low level is, of course, good news from the tenants' point of view,” says Kern. “But the truth is that it noticeably weakens our company's investment power and they are therefore able to invest less in good housing.”

Because many apartments are being built there, the vacancy rate has been around two percent for years, despite a strong influx of people into the Berlin area. The rate has recently even increased by 0.1 percentage points. “Three percent is the ideal line. “We have a balanced housing market,” says the BBU CEO.

The three percent mark is a common value. Other experts think differently, however, and speak of a housing shortage when vacancy rates are below three percent. In fact, it can be considered good news that BBU rents in the Berlin area have risen by a below-average 1.8 percent, and in the state capital Potsdam in particular by just 1.0 percent. Kern describes 6.30 euros net cold per square meter in Potsdam from the municipal company and the local cooperatives as “extremely cheap.” Nevertheless, even slightly increased rents are a problem for people who are already suffering from the fact that food and energy have become much more expensive and who no longer have any financial flexibility.

Far from Berlin, almost 20,000 BBU apartments are empty, almost 12,000 of them permanently. The situation would be much worse if 66,200 apartments had not already been demolished there since reunification. The vacancy rate is 9.7 percent – the lowest since 1998. Nevertheless, Kern warns: “Vacancy is and remains a serious problem!” On the one hand, the demolition costs for the maintenance of the buildings were saved, but on the other hand, equity with a total value of an estimated two billion euros was destroyed.

State parliamentarian Isabelle Vandré (Left Party) can now basically repeat what she claimed in May. “Rents are too high.” “We feel this throughout Brandenburg and not just in the cities bordering Berlin,” she explained at the time, referring to a study commissioned by her party. The rent increases can be felt as far away as Prignitz and Uckermark. The Left Party has been pointing out for years that “families who need a larger apartment often search in vain for months, that rent increases eat up incomes and that displacement from family neighborhoods is no longer a rarity in Brandenburg either.” The need for affordable housing massively exceeds supply.

The Construction Association is calling on the next state government to streamline laws and standards. “The continued lack of funding for construction projects and the high requirements for housing construction are having an extremely negative effect,” says Managing Director Katarzyna Urbanczyk-Siwek.

Subscribe to the »nd«

Being left-wing is complicated.
We keep an overview!

With our digital special subscription you can read all editions of »nd« digitally (nd.App or nd.Epaper) for little money at home or on the go.
Subscribe now!