Why Germans Love Renting Their Homes

Tancred

antrobus wrote: »

Quick, let's Google 'Labour mobility in Germany'!

It is shown that labour mobility is highest in Germany, followed by France, and Italy.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/5260.html

Labour mobility does not necessarily mean moving house.

michaels

Tancred wrote: »

The big difference is that there it'a defined benefit, guaranteed by the state. Private provision guarantees nothing, as you are at the mercy of the stockmarket.

Almost exactly like SERPS and retiring at 65 then :rotfl:

CLAPTON

Tancred wrote: »

Labour mobility does not necessarily mean moving house.

do you have figures that suggest the Germans move properties less often than other nationalities?

CLAPTON

Tancred wrote: »

Not much racial difference between UK and Germany - I assume you mean national stereotyping. Germany is a country with much more traditional values and socially conservative than the UK. Closer to Ireland, I dare say.

do you have any evidence that the family is less important to people living in the UK than to people living in German for whatever reason?

wotsthat

German housing threads - anecdotal heavy - stat light.

antrobus

Tancred wrote: »

Labour mobility does not necessarily mean moving house.

But it does in terms of that paper which was measuring internal migration.

Tancred wrote: »

The big difference is that there it'a defined benefit, guaranteed by the state. Private provision guarantees nothing, as you are at the mercy of the stockmarket.

Public provision similarly guarantees nothing, as you are at the mercy of future generations of taxpayers. After all, how secure would you consider the 'guaranteed' Greek state pension?

The future's uncertain, and the end is always near.:)

wotsthat wrote: »

German housing threads - anecdotal heavy - stat light.

Actually that describes most of the threads here on MSE. :rotfl:

Kicker

Being German and letting appartments in a few properties on a private basis here, I can only smile lightly at some of the statements in this thread. I'll sell and move on as fast as I can, but am restricted to my family being attached to this place. Besides the popular areas of larger cities or the South, economically far ahead of the rest of the country, the rents and returns are laughable while costs pile up.

Worst part of being a landlord here is that the law protects the tenants and as long as they haven't fallen behind too much on their monthly rent payment, there's almost no way of getting them out- ever. And period. Eviction process is lenghty and ultra- expensive. It's come as far as you're paying people to move out of your properties in addition to them being indebted to you!

I'll not venture more into this topic, but private landlords are rarely happy people around my neck of the woods. Last I read more than half of landlords don't make any money on their properties and I surely belong into that category. Our market and especially laws are very much different from yours in the UK...

CLAPTON

Kicker wrote: »

Being German and letting appartments in a few properties on a private basis here, I can only smile lightly at some of the statements in this thread. I'll sell and move on as fast as I can, but am restricted to my family being attached to this place. Besides the popular areas of larger cities or the South, economically far ahead of the rest of the country, the rents and returns are laughable while costs pile up.

Worst part of being a landlord here is that the law protects the tenants and as long as they haven't fallen behind too much on their monthly rent payment, there's almost no way of getting them out- ever. And period. Eviction process is lenghty and ultra- expensive. It's come as far as you're paying people to move out of your properties in addition to them being indebted to you!

I'll not venture more into this topic, but private landlords are rarely happy people around my neck of the woods. Last I read more than half of landlords don't make any money on their properties and I surely belong into that category. Our market and especially laws are very much different from yours in the UK...

if letting is so unprofitable in Germany why do people let?

ash28

ruggedtoast wrote: »

One of my friends is German. His family are wealthy and middle class, and over the years built a very successful business in Berlin employing several hundred people.

They didn't start out wealthy though, and unsurprisingly for Germany, they were given a nice family house with a protected social rent.

What is surprising (or surprised me anyway) is that they lived there all through most of their working lives, until eventually building their own house to spec in the countryside in their 50s. For all that rest of the time, with the beaten up VW turning into a top of the line new Mercedes, they were were quite happy with their council place for them and their boys.

This seems to be quite normal in Germany. People don't see property as a get rich quick scheme, or renting as some kind of mark of shame, the losing side of the zero sum game with speculators and the speculated.

They are given security of tenure, can have families and pets and can make reasonable changes to their properties without having to beg some spiv who can evict them for no reason.

Council stock is plentiful and high quality, and people aren't clambering over one another to move to a better post code when they dont need it any more. It is intended to provide a decent stable home for people to stay long term and thrive without being flung off the greasy pole of social one upmanship.

It is basically, the exact opposite of what housing is about in the UK. Germans have less housing wealth than us, and they are immeasurably richer for it.

Except the states in Germany are selling off social housing at a rate of knots -

According to the city of Bonn the number of state-subsidised housing units decreased from about 14,000 in the year 2000 to about 12,000 in 2012. This number is expected to drop to 8,000 by 2016 as from then onwards hundreds of apartments will no longer be subject to rent control. Public subsidized social housing may be rented for a fixed period only for a limited price. The landlords will then be able to demand much higher rents for the flats. At the moment over 3,000 people are looking for a council flat in the city - and all of them have an eligibility certificate.

http://www.goethe.de/ges/soz/soz/en10542335.htm

Over half of Germans live in flats, not houses.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File:Distribution_of_population_by_dwelling_type,_2011_%28%25_of_population%29_YB14.png&filetimestamp=20131210161858

It looks like the German model could be changing.

Generali

Kicker wrote: »

Being German and letting appartments in a few properties on a private basis here, I can only smile lightly at some of the statements in this thread. I'll sell and move on as fast as I can, but am restricted to my family being attached to this place. Besides the popular areas of larger cities or the South, economically far ahead of the rest of the country, the rents and returns are laughable while costs pile up.

Worst part of being a landlord here is that the law protects the tenants and as long as they haven't fallen behind too much on their monthly rent payment, there's almost no way of getting them out- ever. And period. Eviction process is lenghty and ultra- expensive. It's come as far as you're paying people to move out of your properties in addition to them being indebted to you!

I'll not venture more into this topic, but private landlords are rarely happy people around my neck of the woods. Last I read more than half of landlords don't make any money on their properties and I surely belong into that category. Our market and especially laws are very much different from yours in the UK...

If you don't mind me asking Kicker, why did you start renting out properties? Was it a bad decision or did the numbers change to your disadvantage?