Germany
Contenido
Existen diversos enfoques de política de vivienda. Unos prefieren basarse en la vivienda social, y otros, subvencionar de diversas formas la vivienda privada, incluso a las personas de mayores ingresos (por ejemplo la desgravación por hipotecas en España, que durante un tiempo incluso abarcó la segunda vivienda).[15] Una propuesta de reforma consiste en que el alquiler existente se ajuste al alquiler de mercado mediante una reforma del alquiler comparativo local, y subvencionar solo a los inquilinos que realmente lo necesitan.
El Foro de Múnich también quiere permitir que las empresas municipales de vivienda, las cooperativas de vivienda y las comunidades de constructoras privadas lleven a cabo “construcción de viviendas conceptuales”. Las normas SoBon más estrictas para los nuevos terrenos edificables, los apartamentos más pequeños, los procedimientos acelerados según el artículo 13a de la BauGB, la densificación, las estaciones de movilidad para el uso compartido de vehículos y una tasa de estacionamiento más baja (porque la gente tiene menos vehículos, ya que comparten una porción) pretenden hacer que los instrumentos de la política municipal de vivienda sean más versátiles.
Home Ownership Policy
Housing policy has the options of promoting ownership or promoting rentals. It can even make decisions so that public housing (in which tenants live, paying rent to the state) or protected housing (which its occupants have bought at a reduced price and, if they want to sell it, they must do so at a price below the market price) becomes free housing (subject only to the market, without restrictions). The promotion of home ownership is sometimes controversial. In Germany, the homeownership subsidy (EHZ) was abolished as of January 1, 2006. In Spain, the tax relief for mortgages on primary residences was abolished as of January 1, 2013,[16] after it was considered to have fueled the real estate bubble.[17] But in 2024, the Generalitat of Catalonia launched a loan program of up to 50,000 euros to co-finance the purchase of the first home for young people up to 35 years old, despite the fact that such a measure has been considered ineffective and counterproductive for, predictably, raising final prices, in a report by the public policy analysis center Ivàlua.[18].
In the German state private pension scheme (“Riester pension”), which has existed since 2002, owner-occupied residential properties are taken into account using the withdrawal model (sections § 92a, § 92b of the Income Tax Act). In no other country in Europe do more people live in rent than in Germany. In 2016 it was 54%, followed by Denmark with 34%. In other countries, the percentage of people who live in rent barely exceeds 25%. Increasing the rate of home ownership in Germany faces excessive purchase costs and a lack of incentives through tax relief and credit insurance. What other countries would like is to increase the percentage of tenants,[19] because a high percentage of owners harms the geographical mobility of workers.[20].
Among the special issues are the real estate transfer tax (GrESt for its acronym in German; in Spain it is the Documented Legal Acts Tax) and the so-called brokerage commission. There was criticism that the GrESt had been at 2% for many years, which was considered too low. With the Annual Tax Law of 1997, the tax rate for the property transfer tax was increased from 2% to 3.5% (a 75% increase). Since September 1, 2006, the Länder, in accordance with art. 105 para. 2nd sentence 2 of the GG, have the power to determine the tax rate.
On the contrary, the brokerage commission for a long time varied greatly depending on the Land and was criticized as an additional burden, because it sometimes fell solely on the buyer.[21] In 2020, section 656c of the BGB stipulated as a general rule the half-distribution of this commission between the buyer and the seller in the purchase of apartments and single-family homes, as long as the buyer was a consumer.
Housing policy in the Länder
Berlin increased the property transfer tax to 4.5%. Hamburg also increased it to 4.5% from January 1, 2009.[22] In Rhineland-Palatinate, the red-green coalition elected in 2011 decided to increase the property transfer tax from March 1, 2012 by one and a half percentage points (= more than 42%). North Rhine-Westphalia increased the tax on property transfers on October 1, 2011 to 5%.[23] It should be taken into account that these are increases in a tax that falls on the total price of the home, which is very high, so they make transactions considerably more difficult.
Bavaria increases housing aid for families with children by 300 euros per year per child if the application is submitted before December 31, 2020.
Federal policy since 2013
The second grand coalition of Angela Merkel's third government drafted a housing alliance in its coalition agreement at the end of 2013. A pact for affordable housing and construction gave substance to the new housing policy, which called for rent control, an expansion of social housing, an increase in housing aid, favorable consideration of depreciation for newly built apartments and the impact of intermediation costs based on the "polluter pays" principle.
On March 5, 2015, the German Bundestag (Parliament) approved the so-called "rental price brake", which limits the increase in the local reference rent to 10%. At the end of 2018, the third grand coalition of Angela Merkel's fourth government approved the so-called Tenant Protection Law, which tightened limitations on rent increases and reduced the rate of allocation of modernization costs from the owner to the tenant from 11 to 8%. In 2018, the introduction of a housing subsidy for families with children and favorable amortization in the construction of new rental apartments was also approved by law.
In 2018, the Humboldt University of Berlin prepared a housing policy analysis commissioned by the Hans Böckler Foundation. This analysis showed that 4 out of 10 households or 8.6 million inhabitants of the main German cities spend 30% or more of their net income on rent and additional expenses (when this percentage is exceeded, it is generally considered – not only in Germany but also in other countries – that the price of housing is excessive and the administrations must act to reduce it).
An analysis by the Institute of German Economics in Cologne concluded in 2020 that only 2.2% of the total population paid more than 30% for rent for their home in a large city and, therefore, only a small group of households bore a significant increase in housing costs.
Across the country, an average of 90,000 social homes come off rent control each year. Subsidized new buildings cannot even offset a third of these departures. While there were still 4 million social housing units available in 1980, in 2006 the figure was just 2.1 million and fell from an average of 55,000 apartments per year to 1.2 million in 2018.
At the end of 2017, almost 600,000 households received housing aid for a total of €1.1 billion, about €150 per month on average. The rent cap "has no impact" on low-income households.