Berlin rent cap overturned by Germany's top court
This is a catastrophe and very disappointing.<p>Here is a little personal anecdote: I used to live in the center of Berlin Mitte when I was a student, had rented a Penthouse apartment for 450 Euro&#x2F;mo incl. additional costs (but without water, gas, electricity). It was affordable. Then a Bavarian multimillionaire bought the house from the original owners. I was already abroad most of the time, so I didn&#x27;t experience the loud works his people conducted to get old renters out. However, he did cut off my telephone cable, something the phone technician realized when I returned and was able to fix.<p>Later he threatened to build a balcony - &quot;and this might take a long time&quot; - unless I agree to pay a higher rent. The classic ugly move. I negotiated with him for a while and in the end the raise was not so bad. However, I realized that I have to get out anyway - he wouldn&#x27;t stop until I&#x27;d have left,  you cannot fight a landlord with evil intentions in the long run even if you&#x27;re a member of renter protection like I was. So I left Berlin and never returned, not even for a visit. I never asked but would estimate the same apartment at around 1600 EUR&#x2F;mo today, with an ever increasing tendency.<p>Now I live in another country, ten years have passed, and the same happens in the city I live in. Rents are rising continuously, I&#x27;ve already seen people photographing the houses in our street, several of them are being totally renovated, new apartments are <i>always</i> &quot;luxury apartments&quot; as if any local could afford these (it&#x27;s a poor country, ca. 800 EUR average income), and an agent from Sotheby&#x27;s Real Estate rang my doorbell recently to ask if I&#x27;m the owner of my apartment.<p>You cannot escape this trend unless you want to live jobless on the countryside. I&#x27;d buy an apartment like most of my colleagues if I had the money, but it would mean having liabilities for the next 20 years and I only have time-limited contracts in Academia.<p>It&#x27;s frustrating to know there is a real risk I&#x27;ll have to spend my later years in the most ugly suburbs and slums of an otherwise beautiful town, even though I have a rather decent salary in local terms, while most of these houses with unaffordable &quot;luxury apartments&quot; are bought by foreign investors. By the way, many of the new apartments are empty, apparently only serve as investments.