After Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) scheduled initial consultations on reforming Germany’s real estate transfer tax system to give the country’s federal states more freedom and thereby make it easier to buy and sell real estate, the SPD is working on other instruments to promote homeownership. Kevin Kühnert (SPD) is pushing for a state programme to replace equity in the purchase of residential property. The aim is to enable households with stable incomes but without large financial reserves to buy their own homes. Jürgen Michael Schick, President of the German real estate association IVD, has welcomed this initiative. The largest hurdle for many potential buyers is having a big enough deposit for a home, which is why young families in particular often need to rely on inheritances or support from their parents. As interest rates on construction loans have risen, it has become virtually impossible for people to build their own homes from their regular incomes alone, according to the IVD.
This year, the housing industry expects heating costs to rise by more than 50 per cent. Maren Kern, board member of the Association of Berlin-Brandenburg Housing Companies, assumes that heating costs will continue to rise significantly. According to Kern, the federal government’s taxable, one-off heating grant of 300 euros is nowhere near enough to help households cover the imminent increases. The government’s hardship fund is a first step in the right direction, she said, but she also appealed to tenants to follow their housing company’s recommendations and make voluntary advance payments for heating costs, or to start putting money aside themselves. Meanwhile, Georg Friedrichs, the head of Gasag, Berlin’s largest utility company, has appealed to households in Berlin to reduce room temperatures whenever possible in the autumn. According to Friedrichs, just one degree Celsius less will reduce a household’s energy consumption by seven per cent.
The shortage of available (and affordable) housing on Berlin’s residential real estate market has prompted the city’s Senate to launch an alliance with municipal districts, cooperatives, real estate companies and industry associations. The alliance’s members all signed a 22-page agreement at the end of June and committed to the goals of creating 100,000 new apartments by the end of 2026, significantly simplifying building permit procedures, and easing the housing burden for low-income households. The necessary development plans should be in place within three years, and funding of 740 million euros per year has been earmarked in the Senate’s budget for 2022 and 2023 to promote social housing. The major housing companies, including Vonovia, also promised to ensure that 30 per cent of all re-rentals go to tenants with housing entitlement certificates. Franziska Giffey (SPD), the governing mayor, expects more signatories to join in the next few months.
