00:00This 89-year-old man is giving away land worth 10 million euros.
00:04Otto Gugger has donated his 3,000 square meter property,
00:07located in one of Europe's most expensive cities, Munich.
00:23He gave the land to the Foundation Daheim im Viertel
00:27to build affordable community housing.
00:28They plan to construct around 20 apartments on the plot.
00:31In Munich, valuable land like this usually gets developed into luxury housing,
00:35driving up prices and shrinking the market for people with average salaries.
00:39But Gugger wants to help those who can't afford to live in the city anymore.
00:42The people who have a hard time in life,
00:46whether it's due to their illness or due to their finances or other situations,
00:53that they have a chance to put them on the floor.
00:58Otto Gugger's donation is a remarkable one, especially as Germany's housing crisis continues to deepen.
01:05Out of 23 European cities renting a furnace studio costs the most in Munich.
01:09Almost 1,500 euros a month, nearly double the price of a comparable studio in Athens.
01:14Slow housing development is putting an even greater squeeze on the city's residents.
01:19Germany needs an estimated 1.4 million homes right now.
01:22Yet in 2025, just over 200,000 apartments were built nationwide, the lowest number in more than a decade.
01:29Construction costs are rising, projects are stalling, and experts warn there's no quick fix.
01:34Even optimistic forecasts say it could take years before supply catches up with demand.
01:39The consequences are already visible.
01:51Don't we all know someone who has struggled to find a flat?
01:53Families crowding into small apartments, young people jumping from sublet to sublet,
01:58and key workers increasingly being prized out of the cities that rely on them.
02:01The Mieten in München are immensely high.
02:05And, yes, it just gives us the flexibility,
02:08so that you can move from a larger building into a smaller building
02:11or move from a smaller building into a smaller building.
02:15It's actually impossible.
02:17If I had not had the acquaintances,
02:19if I had people that could continue there,
02:22then I could never find a living in that area.
02:25For migrants in low-income households,
02:27the pressure is even greater
02:28with fewer chances of securing stable housing.
02:31One donated plot won't solve Germany's systemic housing issues.
02:35But in a market dominated by profit,
02:38Otto Gugger's decision offers something rare.
02:40A concrete example of how property could be treated,
02:43not just as an investment, but as a place to live.
02:49I would think it's a common sense of what the history should be treated,
02:49but hopefully it is very much easier to make.
02:50To be honest,
02:50If a lot of people and people have to take a lot of care,
02:50and what people have testified to him now,
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