Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It has become fashionable in recent times for opponents of a rent freeze to say we should a look at what happened when they tried to freeze rents in Berlin. I am going to do precisely that.

Under the old neoliberal market status quobefore the rent freeze in Berlin, rent had increased by 100% in the period 2009 to 2019. Under pressure from below, from a mass movement of tenants, the Berlin municipal government in early 2020 froze rents for a period of five years at mid-2019 prices. From November 2020, rents still above the mid-2019 price had to be reduced. The price of rent fell by an average of 7.8% for Berlin's 1.5 million renters in the course of the freeze.

Was there a corresponding negative in terms of renovation or modernisation for climate change, as opponents suggest? No, not really. According to the Berlin tenants' association there was a modernisation rate of 1% prior to the freeze so there is not much scope for any corresponding negative there.

Did the rent freeze cripple supply, which is the key argument of the opponents? According to Germany's largest property website, Immo Scout24, the number of rentals advertised did fall by 19% in 2020-2021. Properties for sale increased also by 23% if you look only at the properties impacted by the freeze. A minority were excluded. This attempt to exit the market by some landlords can be taken as a negative or it can be taken as a positive in that it was an opportunity to switch from for-profit landlordism to non-profit housing provision by way of municipal acquisition. The decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court to overturn the rent freeze this April has given a big boost to the campaign called Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co. This is a campaign to nationalise the properties of all landlords with 3,000 apartments or more. This proposal will now go to a referendum in September and I hope it passes.

In short, the Berlin rent freeze benefited 1.5 million tenants financially, had a negligible impact on modernisation, displaced the most profit-crazed landlords, could only be overthrown by an unelected court and opened the door to the possibility of state provision of housing with lower rents. Was this a negative experience? For some landlords it probably was but for renters this was far from the case. The example of the mass movement from below in Berlin should be emulated here and the example of the rent freeze, in going further, should also be emulated here. I support the Bill.

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