Yes, and that is exactly the reason why the energy transition in the heating sector (insulation, conversion to heat pumps, etc.) is proceeding so slowly in Germany! - The incentives for landlords to invest in energy-saving measures are simply non-existent if increased heating costs (higher gas prices) can always be passed on to the tenants anyway…
There are compounding issues too:
- Most cities, even more pronounced in Western Germany, have lackluster district heating networks — meaning green district heating concepts like in Denmark wouldn’t work nearly as well.
- There was a huge privatization wave in the 90s. Residential buildings in many cases now need to make a profit every year. High-capex measures that bring mediocre/hard-to-forecast opex improvements (entirely dependent on the price of fossil gas vs. electricity) like heat pumps are not going to win you fans among profit-driven investors.
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That’s just a wild guess. Switzerland is facing the same situation and yet, landlords are investing frenetically in the energy transition of their buildings to increase value. We’re in a vicious circle of renovation and increasing rents where it has become an everyday struggle to afford rent. At least in thd cities.
Council housing provides housing for 5million Germans. Another 5million live in cooperative housing.
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It seems like their is some misunderstanding of the map.
Here is the information that has been provided on Instagram for this post:Being an owner or a tenant of your home is something that differs significantly among the Member States.
In the EU in 2021, 70 % of the population lived in a household owning their home, while the remaining 30 % lived in rented housing. The highest shares of ownership were observed in Romania (95 % of the population lived in a household owning their home), Slovakia (92 %, 2020 data), Hungary (92 %) and Croatia (91 %).
Of all the countries analysed, Switzerland and Germany were the only ones where renting was more common than owning.
FYI there’s a duplicate sentence there:
In the EU in 2021, 70 % of the population lived in a household owning their home, while the remaining 30 % lived in rented housing.
There are two kinds of people. Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Me: wait, what about England? …oh! Oh……
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The UK is still in Europe, but no longer in the EU
I don’t understand why it’s missed out here
Especially since they included Switzerland, which was never in the EU.
Norway and arguably Iceland should be included as well, and the Balkans. Norway would be same as Sweden, Iceland and Balkans no idea.
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I know they are out of the club but maybe still interesting.
In England and Wales, the figure for 2021 was 62.5%, down from 64.3% in 2011 (~500k households fewer).
Source: ONS
It’s alright, I wouldn’t see Turkey in the club either
I wonder if it plays a role in mid/eastern europe that many work in Germany etc and are then able to afford a house in their homecountries.
It’s just not common in Germany to buy apartments. People either rent, and if they want to buy, they buy a house. Most apartment buildings belong to big companies and not to smaller landlords, making it also not cheaper or in any way attractive to buy an apartment.
In Eastern Europe apartment ownership is very common on the other hand. All the old Soviet blocks have individual ownership of each apartment in it, and the buildings are maintained by groups of people who own the apartments in that building (I forgot the word, not a native English speaker, sorry. But basically like a union out of each owner in the building, there’s monthly meetings to decide stuff etc). Landlords usually will not be big companies like in Germany, but just private persons who have had the apartment in their family for a long time. This also makes it easier to buy an apartment, if you don’t want to rent.
It’s just very different structures and mentalities. When I still lived in Germany I found it stupid to ever buy an apartment and would have just rented forever, since house prices are astronomical. Now I live in Eastern Europe and it took some time to adjust, but it’s really just the norm here to buy or own an apartment at some point in your live and most natives I know here own one, or live in a place that a family member owns.
Most people in Germany simply can’t afford to buy an apartment, let alone a house.
All the old Soviet blocks have individual ownership of each apartment in it, and the buildings are maintained by groups of people who own the apartments in that building (I forgot the word, not a native English speaker, sorry. But basically like a union out of each owner in the building, there’s monthly meetings to decide stuff etc).
The word you’re looking for is probably “cooperative”
HOA would be the American term.
I thought it would be a condo (condominium) board or association, since they’re ‘apartments’ not detached single family homes.
The concepts don’t translate neatly. Generally I don’t think most Europeans have different words for condominiums and apartments. And in my experience detached homes rarely belong to HOAs.
Nope a cooperative would own the entire apartment building and the residents own shares in the cooperative. What Lost is describing is a homeowner association. There the individual apartments are directly owned by the residents.
I would guess that property prices in big cities are just not as inflated as in central and western Europe.
No, what does is that a lot of the countries sold the government owned houses built in the communist era for cheap to the tenants. So that helps a lot and only happend a generation ago. Germany unfortunatly did not do that and sold the East German housing to mainly west German companies or individuals.
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Seriously it is renters vs owners, well in terms of households owning the home. Link from Eurostat:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/digpub/housing/bloc-1a.html?lang=en
Germany is also last when it’s about ownership in general though. Germans have pretty low net worth considering the country’s economic power because they love their Girokonto and their Sparbuch (aka money gets eaten by inflation).
One of the major reasons that no one seems to mention is that renter’s are well protected by right’s and are nearly impossible to kick out. Rental contracts are usually signed without any expiry on the lease and agents are only allowed to raise rental prices every few years. People are expected to live in their rental for decades, to the point where rentals come without kitchens because people are expected to buy their own and use it for 20 years
Right. That’s one major reason not to buy real estate in Germany for renting it out. Tenants can basically destroy your property and there’s hardly anything you can do about it. There are other kinds of assets to build wealth though.
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Have you tried finding a place to live in Germany? lol
The money of Germans is in the Rentenkasse and is not considered net worth in these studies. It’s like not counting 401k’s for Americans.
Because it’s different than the 401k. The money you pay into the Rentenkasse is converted into points which are a “promise” that you may get old-age pension someday in the future. It’s not like a saving account where you put away your money.
Isn’t this the same?
If 6 out of 10 households own and actually live in their owned property, than 60% own and 40% rent.
I think regarding the numbers in this statistic you are right. But there are people who don’t have their own property, but also don’t rent, for example homeless people or if you let your family live on your property without taking rent of them.
Homeless account for 0.3% of population in Germany, that is negligible.
And you are not allowed to let your family live on your property without taking rent of them. Search for it if you don’t believe it.
I looked it up and you can let your family live on your property for free through a borrow agreement corresponding to §598 BGB. It just can’t be taken into account for the tax return.
Erlaubt ist es, aber:
- der Mieter muss dann Schenkungssteuer zahlen, und
- der Vermieter muss evtl. Zweitwohnsteuer zahlen, und
- der Vermieter kann natürlich keine Ausgaben (Renovierung etc.) bei der Einkommenssteuer ansetzen.
Just for a comparison 65.9% for the USA. https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/homeownership-rate-by-state the worst states aren’t under 50%.
The homeownership rate declined in 82% of states between 2005 and 2020.
🪦
the worst states aren’t under 50%.
I wouldn’t necessarily classify private home ownership as good or bad.
For one, there are different styles of living and if you need something small or need to move a bit more often, renting often makes more sense.
Then there’s the more fundamental question if private home ownership actually means exactly that — in many cases, the home is basically still owned by the bank. The mortgage crisis hit really hard in countries with supposedly high home ownership like the US and Spain.
Sure, it’s just a comparison.
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Because this is about the EU and no one likes egoistic thinking. And we all know that was the reason for the Brexit, even if it didn’t work out well. 🤡
And as you can see other non EU countries are no included as well.
And the Swiss and Lichtenstein are good partners with the EU for decades now.
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But in the description I added later on.
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Why don’t you try to fight for better bilateral relations with your fellow Europeans, in the UK instead of blaming other in the internet for your misses?
We all know the reasons for the Brexit, and it really doesn’t reflect well on the UK. Xenophobia, egoism, populism, which many have been only too happy to be blinded by, and a few trifles in return for many positive things.
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You are right I don’t know why the UK isn’t included.