In order to protect tenants, land has already been purchased for hundreds of millions of euros. But that alone doesn’t help – and it won’t be possible in the near future either. The city needs better strategies.
The completely insane housing and property market drives city politicians to despair again and again – and to acts of desperation. There is no other way to describe the latest purchase bids for properties in Pasing, Schwabing and on Buttermelcherstrasse in the city centre. Irrespective of the question of whether, after the bid in Schwabing for well over 100 million euros, the other two properties will end up with the city for another 130 million euros, the sums alone show the dilemma in which the city is stuck. She has to pay an unbelievable amount of money to make it possible for very few people in Munich to live in a manageable number of apartments in the city.
With the last few purchases, the city had to face the market like any other bidder because a court ruling overrode the municipal right of first refusal in protected areas and the federal government was unable to find a successor solution. But regardless of this, this form of tenant rescue will soon come to an end. In the financially rich times of the past term of office, the city council began to systematically buy apartment buildings that were threatened with luxury renovation and continued to do so until recently.
But now these good times are over due to constant political crises, lean years with new debts of up to six billion euros threaten. In the future it will simply no longer be possible to just buy a plot of land on Gärtnerplatz for 100 million euros. Even if such coups on the real estate market are good for politicians and at least for tenants who are directly affected.
If you look at these purchases honestly, you have to admit that such mood lifters bring little in the sober overall view. Despite the high investments – depending on the property – they create little or no additional apartments and are to be seen as a desperate reaction because there are no alternatives. A relaxation on the rental market can only be achieved if either fewer people want to live in Munich (unlikely at the moment) or more apartments are available (unfortunately very limited at the moment).
The city’s efforts to heat up the building activity have brought little so far. The numbers are stagnating, as is the merger of their housing associations, which are supposed to become more powerful. Nevertheless, the city should focus on this in the coming years.