Study: Housing shortage creates sympathies for squatters

Affordable housing is becoming increasingly scarce in large cities. At the same time there is a vacancy in luxury flats. In Berlin, every second would therefore support house-setting.

Study: Housing shortage creates sympathies for squatters

Housing is becoming more and more expensive: in Munich, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Berlin, spending on an apartment has risen most since 2011. From 3,000 to over 5,000 euros a year, tenants in se cities had to pay more on average for ir homes. For three-and four-room flats, a whole net salary is now often due in large German cities. But anyone who prefers to evade property in face of such prices – if he or she can raise required equity capital – is confronted with enormously high land and real estate prices. Prices for self-used residential property have also exploded in major cities over past few years. Today, in Munich, Berlin and Hamburg, purchasers pay an average of 200 percent more for a property than in year 2007.

The situation on rental and real estate market is so tense that more people also have sympathy for illegal answers to housing problem, such as housework. This applies at least to Berlin, where houses were recently re-occupied: 53 percent of Berliners see this as a legitimate means to draw attention to issue of housing shortages, a survey by Opinion Research Institute FORSA on behalf of Berliner Zeitung.

The activists wanted to protest against precarious situation in housing market with staff in Berlin. After all, a lot is being built in Berlin, but often expensive luxury properties are created which are hardly affordable for normal population. And while expensive condos are partially vacant for a long time until y are sold, number of homeless in capital increases. At same time, high profits on Berlin real estate market attract investors who purchase and resell land primarily for speculative transactions. For example, re is a lack of land on which affordable housing could be created.

Every fourth CDU voter also has sympathy

In ir survey, Berliner Zeitung also wanted to know wher sympathizers and sympathizers of illegal housework belong to a particular camp. The surprising result: even among CDU supporters, more than one in four (26 percent) spoke out for housework. There was particularly great agreement among voters of Left party (83 percent) and supporters of Greens (77 percent). Among those interviewed who are assigned to SPD, every second house has advocated as a means of fighting housing crisis.

Strictly legally, matter is clear: anyone who enters a property or a plot of land against will of owner is punishable under clause 123 Penal Code (CP) for trespassing. In newspaper survey, 43 percent of respondents argued that police should first tolerate illegal squatting and negotiate with occupiers.

By way: for German households, burden of renting and housing prices has not risen. This shows a new analysis of data from Socio-economic panel (SOEP), which was carried out by German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). Thus, although average share of rental costs has risen since 1996, income is higher today as well: While Germans 1996 still 20.6 percent of ir income for rent, it was 2016 22.3 percent in year. This value is explained by fact that housing in countryside and in small towns has become even more affordable. In large cities, on or hand, people spend between 40 and more than 60 percent of ir living income.

Date Of Update: 05 June 2018, 12:02