Berlin buys almost 15,000 apartments from large landlords

The city of Berlin will buy approximately 14,750 apartments from two large companies that rent housing. The agreement with Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen, which also includes 450 stores, was confirmed by the Berlin Senate on Friday. The purchase price is 2.46 billion euros. The transaction concerns about 10 percent of the properties owned by both companies in Berlin. The number of apartments owned by the Land of Berlin will increase to about 355,000, which is about a fifth of the 1.67 million rental apartments in the city. Rising housing costs are an explosive issue in Berlin, where low rents have long been applied compared to many other metropolises. One of the ways in which the outgoing left-wing city coalition sought to solve the problem is through the repurchase of apartments that once belonged to the state and have passed into the hands of private companies in recent decades. In April, the German Constitutional Court ruled that the upper limit of rent set by the local government last year was unconstitutional. The repealed rule froze rents for about 90 percent of Berlin apartments for five years at the level of June 2019. In many cases, rents had to be reduced to match the new threshold. However, following the court's decision, numerous tenants had to reimburse the reduced payments. The new city government will be elected by the people of Berlin on September 26, the day of the national parliamentary elections in Germany. A non-binding referendum will be held in Berlin along with the elections to call on the local government to expropriate the properties of large corporate owners. Proponents of the initiative have criticized Friday's agreement.