There is a lack of affordable housing, especially in the metropolitan areas.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin SPD, Greens and FDP have big plans: 400,000 new apartments are to be built annually by 2025, 100,000 of them social housing. “To this end, we will continue the financial support from the federal government for social housing, including social home ownership, and increase the funds,” says the coalition agreement of the new federal government.
The “Social Housing” alliance, which includes the industrial union for construction, agriculture and the environment (IG Bau) and the German Tenants’ Association, has now had the costs for this calculated by the housing experts at the Pestel Institute and, depending on the energy standard, comes up with a necessary federal subsidy requirement of at least five billion euros per year.
That would be significantly more than before: For the period from 2020 to 2024, the federal government has so far provided financial aid to the states of one billion euros annually for the construction of social housing.
The federal states are actually responsible for the promotion of social housing. However, the federal government can grant them earmarked financial aid. This year, an additional one billion euros is planned for climate-friendly social housing.
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IG-Bau boss Robert Feiger said on Friday: “With Klara Geywitz, we have a federal building minister who wants to build.” Whether she can build now depends heavily on Christian Lindner and the FDP. “The Federal Minister of Finance urgently needs to create a special housing fund – a multi-billion dollar pot for housing construction.” Only then will the turnaround on the housing market succeed.
At least one billion euros more for affordable housing
The alliance sees the traffic light as a great opportunity for more social and affordable housing and is calling for 60,000 apartments a year in addition to the 100,000 social housing units, which should be rented cold for a maximum of 8.50 euros per square meter. The Minister of Finance will have to provide additional funds for this in the coming years, it is said. Depending on the energy standard, the alliance estimates the financial aid to be between one and a good four billion euros.
The new construction minister is aware of the problem and promises to bring momentum to the housing market. “We need a lot more affordable and climate-neutral housing,” said SPD politician Geywitz on Thursday evening in the Bundestag. You will quickly set up an alliance of affordable housing, together with the federal states, the municipalities, the construction and housing industry, with tenants’ associations and trade unions.
In order to reduce the costs of social housing, the alliance “social housing” calls for a rapid reduction in VAT from 19 to seven percent. In addition, the government must implement the increase in linear depreciation from two to three percent announced in the coalition agreement as quickly as possible.
In regions with a housing shortage, special depreciation should apply to the construction of new affordable rental apartments. This special depreciation should therefore be combined with an upper rent limit. According to the alliance, it is urgently necessary to turn these “tax adjustment screws” in order to create more affordable housing.
The main price driver for new construction is the building land. With land prices of 300 euros per square meter and more, social and affordable housing construction has practically no chance anymore, said the head of the Pestel Institute, Matthias Günther. The alliance therefore appealed to the federal and state governments, but above all to cities and municipalities, to aggressively provide cheap building land.
According to the associations, around eleven million tenant households in Germany are entitled to a housing entitlement certificate and thus to social housing. However, it is said that there is only one corresponding apartment for every tenth of them.
In recent years, the stock of social housing has steadily decreased. The reason for this is that the so-called price maintenance expires after 12 to 20 years and the apartments are then transferred to the open market. Landlords can then demand the usual local rents.
More: Increasing construction costs, inefficient building stock – these are the problems Minister Geywitz is facing.