- 16 hours ago
Germany's housing market is in crisis, and people who rent are feeling the pinch. A shortage of affordable housing is making tenants easy targets for exploitation, as landlords bend and break the rules and regulations.
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00:01With Germany in the grip of a housing crisis,
00:04some landlords are breaking the law or using legal loopholes to exploit tenants.
00:10The problem is that the housing market is under such pressure
00:14that landlords in certain situations can make as much money as they like.
00:19Living costs in German cities have exploded in recent years,
00:23with demand for housing far outstripping supply.
00:26Housing is a human right and there should be affordable housing.
00:29We're going to fight for this.
00:31Unfortunately, the days when it was possible to pick where you wanted to live in Berlin are long gone.
00:36A majority of people in Germany live in rented accommodation
00:39and are protected by law from the fiercest aspects of the free market.
00:44But in the current crisis, many landlords have found ways to bend and break the rules
00:50and turn up the pressure on their tenants.
00:52This is my wardrobe. According to them, this is the cupboard that they have provided me.
00:56We realised that the rent was twice as high as it legally should be.
01:01I was coming out of the shower and there was just a new strange guy in my apartment.
01:06Coming up, we'll hear stories from tenants in Berlin and Munich
01:10that demonstrate the real effects that this crisis is having on ordinary people's lives.
01:15Since 2016, rental prices in Germany have risen on average by 44%.
01:22Worst affected is the capital city.
01:25Once famous for its affordability, Berlin's rent prices have become almost 70% more expensive in the last decade.
01:33In Germany, famously, people tend to rent their homes.
01:37At the last count in 2024, more than half the population were living in rented housing.
01:4252.8% is the highest proportion of any country in the EU.
01:47Renters enjoy a number of rights and protections, while landlords are subject to obligations and limits.
01:53In short, the German housing market is extensively regulated.
01:56But many of those rules are not fit for purpose.
01:59Let's take a look at one example.
02:01Take the meet price bremser, the rent price break.
02:05We'll call it the rent break from now on.
02:07This is applied in cities where the housing market is regarded as under strain.
02:12And at the moment, that is quite a few of them.
02:15Now, the rent break stipulates that prices for new contracts must not be more than 10% above the going
02:21rate in the neighbourhood.
02:22That's an index price based on factors like size, amenities, location, etc.
02:27But it's down to tenants to enforce this rule and landlords currently face no penalties if they break it.
02:34Many tenants don't know their rights and many landlords are effectively incentivized to see how much they can get away
02:41with.
02:42In Berlin, we met two housemates who have learned the hard way what it takes to fight back against overpriced
02:48rents.
02:49As Tabea and Charlotte and thousands of other Berliners know, finding an apartment here is a full-time job.
02:57I don't think we were looking for that long, but we were spending all of our time looking because we
03:02had to leave our old place at short notice.
03:04I think it was about two or three months, but we were looking all day, every day.
03:10I remember that we would walk through different neighbourhoods and say to each other,
03:14Oh, this is nice. Imagine if we could just decide we'd like to live here.
03:19What Tabea and Charlotte eventually found was a modest apartment outside the city centre.
03:24Hardly the lap of luxury, but they soon realized they were paying way over the odds.
03:29When we were finished with the move, we had some more time to take a proper look at the contract.
03:34We realized that the rent wasn't just a bit too expensive, but twice as high as it legally should be.
03:40The flat is owned by the Swedish real estate company Heimstaden.
03:44It insists that extensive renovation works it carried out mean that the rent break doesn't apply.
03:50It's not the only point on which the two parties disagree.
03:54As an example of how things are going or what kind of things Heimstaden argues about,
03:59it's considered a positive attribute for an apartment if it has a pantry.
04:04We're currently arguing about whether this nook, where the gas boiler is, constitutes a pantry or not.
04:11A recent investigation by Berlin's local public broadcaster, RBB,
04:15revealed a pattern of rent break violations on the part of Heimstaden,
04:19many of which the company attempted to justify with renovation works.
04:24They found that in hundreds of cases, Heimstaden was forced to reduce its rates.
04:29DW approached Heimstaden for a comment and was told,
04:32Heimstaden does usually not provide information on ongoing legal proceedings.
04:38The tenants have been provided with a detailed description of all relevant modernization work.
04:43Heimstaden complies with legal requirements when letting new apartments,
04:48including of course when we modernize our existing properties to improve the quality for tenants.
04:54The law provides for exceptions.
04:55The legislation, which is not precise in many areas, repeatedly leads to differing legal interpretations
05:02and legal disputes in connection with the rent break.
05:06We are calling on politicians to provide greater clarity in this regard.
05:10Over the course of more than a year, Tabea and Charlotte received several reduced rent offers,
05:16but none that they considered low enough to comply with the rent break.
05:20If you know people in Berlin who've moved house in recent years,
05:23then the chances are that you know people who live in Heimstaden flats
05:26and are affected by extortionate rents.
05:30Numbers of unchallenged violations of the rent break are hard to come by.
05:34As the rules continue to be subverted out of sight, the city is changing.
05:39It affects the social fabric.
05:41If people who've grown up here aren't able to find a place to live,
05:44who knows how that will transform the neighbourhood long term.
05:49Charlotte and Tabea's case demonstrates the challenges that tenants face in applying the rent break
05:55that is designed to protect them.
05:57Pitched court battles like theirs are not rare.
06:00Landlords do not suffer sanctions for violating the rent break.
06:03Only in extreme cases can they be punished, and even then it almost never happens.
06:08At 50% above the local reference rate, the price may even constitute the criminal offence of rent gouging,
06:15but here too it's incumbent on tenants to prove that their landlord has exploited them in a desperate situation.
06:22It's this qualification that makes the offence itself practically impossible to prove and punish.
06:29In 2025, Berlin's municipal government created a rent check service
06:33to help tenants access the rent break and find out if they could save money.
06:37In the first 12 months of its existence, over 90% of people who consulted this service
06:44were told that their rent was indeed too high.
06:48Dr Sandra Obermeyer, who runs the service, gave us her view on the situation in the city.
06:54The fact that completely inflated rents are advertised so brazenly on all of the online portals
07:00mean that many people think, well, that must just be the right price.
07:06And even if people do know that it's there, the rent break isn't always applicable.
07:11That is something that Dr Obermeyer wants to see changed.
07:15Based on our experience speaking to tenants, we'd like to see the number of exceptions to the rent break reduced.
07:22There are landlords who have specialised in targeting these exceptions. We see that all the time.
07:28Now let's take a look at one of those exceptions in action. But first, some context.
07:34From a landlord's point of view, Germany's rent regulations can be a source of serious frustration.
07:40If profit is what you're interested in, all of this red tape is bad for business.
07:45Increasingly, many landlords are turning to a more lucrative model, renting furnished apartments on a short-term basis.
07:52A 2023 study by a federal research institute found that furnished rentals are rapidly spreading, especially in big German cities.
08:02German Property Owners Association Haus und Grund gave us this statement.
08:06The rent break and other similar measures mean that rent prices can no longer be adjusted in line with rising
08:13costs.
08:14In many cases, this makes economically viable renting virtually impossible.
08:19The growth of furnished or fixed-term models should be understood as a response to these market conditions.
08:26In Munich, we met Corinna and Ella, who have seen this shift happen firsthand inside their own home.
08:33Ella and Corinna once felt welcome in their homes in one of Munich's prime locations.
08:39That was before new owners took over the building in 2021.
08:44So it was like, okay, we have no idea what's going to happen.
08:49We have no idea how long we're going to be able to live here.
08:52And I don't know, it's going to be more complicated.
08:56And turns out it's got more complicated.
08:59The two neighbors had long-term contracts and were able to stay in their homes.
09:03But around them, everything started to change.
09:06When flatmates and neighbors moved out, the building was left increasingly empty.
09:11It was a ghost building, basically.
09:14So we talked to the city of Munich and told them that there's so much space that you could live
09:22in that is empty in a city of Munich,
09:25where you need affordable housing, you need small rooms for students.
09:29Then apartments in the building were rented out again by companies offering single rooms with fixed-term contracts.
09:36For Corinna and Ella, that meant sharing with people they'd never met before.
09:42I was coming out of the shower one night and there was just a new strange guy in my apartment.
09:48And I didn't know who that was.
09:49Those companies, they all have keys to our apartment, so they can come in anytime and they do that.
09:56So it's weird being at home knowing that.
09:59And then, of course, people are just moving in and out and you don't know them.
10:04This is an uncommon practice in Germany.
10:07In an email to the tenants, one of the rental companies involved explained that it is authorized to enter the
10:14communal areas when necessary,
10:16and that it will respect the tenants' privacy in their own rooms and introduce them to new tenants.
10:22Corinna and Ella's problem isn't with the new tenants themselves, but with the system.
10:28It was obvious that they were going to try to put as many people in this building as possible,
10:33sometimes two people per room.
10:34We were happy that finally the space is used again, but then we learned that they put furniture in it
10:41and they only rent it for a short amount of time.
10:45The property management company states that single occupancy is guaranteed for each room,
10:52while double occupancy does not take place.
10:55One of the new tenants is Ben.
10:57He's a student from India and moved to Germany in October 2025.
11:02He found the apartment through a friend.
11:04It's very difficult to get rooms over here in Munich for international students,
11:08because people don't want to keep students.
11:11They are very reserved in these conditions.
11:15Ben is paying more than Corinna and Ella.
11:19When he moved in, he was expecting proper furniture.
11:23This is my wardrobe.
11:25According to them, this is the cupboard that they have provided me.
11:29And the bed.
11:30The bed was broken, so I had to get a new one to fix the legs of the bed.
11:36I don't have the washroom.
11:39It's outside this whole apartment.
11:41It's in the corridor.
11:42And it's shared between two people and then two to three people upstairs.
11:48Most of the new tenants have one thing in common, according to Ben.
11:52Like him, they're not from Germany.
11:54He feels like they have it even harder on the housing market in general.
11:59They know that we don't know so much about the laws and the bylaws.
12:02So they just tell us any random reason and try to take any money from us.
12:08Ben's contract was recently extended for another three months.
12:13The letting agents say that fixed-term leases are unavoidable due to upcoming renovation works on the building.
12:19It's not clear when these renovations will be carried out.
12:22But until then, Corinna and Ella are holding on to their rooms.
12:27I'm paying my rent regularly.
12:30I know this area.
12:31I like this area.
12:32I set down roots here.
12:34Housing is a human rights and there should be affordable housing.
12:37And we're going to fight for this.
12:39And you need this in Munich so badly.
12:44So, as tenants feel the squeeze and landlords find ways to step around the rules, what's the solution?
12:51Let's have a look at the German government's two-pronged plan.
12:55Reform and build.
12:56First off, reform.
12:58The German government is planning to introduce rules which will make it easier to penalise landlords who overcharge their tenants.
13:05A new draft law is expected in December.
13:10We're pleased to see that the Minister of Justice, Mrs Hubig, is planning to tackle the worst evasion strategies in
13:16her upcoming reform.
13:20Short-term leases and furnished apartments are two of the most common ways of sidestepping the rent break.
13:27Second, the supply-side solution.
13:29Build, build, build.
13:31This is an area in which Germany has severely underperformed in recent years.
13:36In 2024, the last year for which statistics are available, just over a quarter of a million new homes were
13:44built.
13:44A drop of more than 14% compared to the previous year and way below the federal government's goal of
13:51400,000.
13:52Germany's current Minister for Housing has introduced a so-called construction turbo to loosen red tape.
13:59And even floated the idea of a state-funded building drive.
14:02By building on one hand and legislating on the other, the government is hoping to provide both a long-term
14:08solution to the country's housing crisis and some short-term relief to the tenants who are feeling the pinch.
14:15Across Germany, there are plenty for whom that relief can't come soon enough.
14:19You don't know that I have to direct you to...
14:23Christmas tree signs now.
14:24ë‚ s footpaths
14:24If they are behind you, your agents to PCEP
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