More than one in two tenants in Germany now has to shoulder higher housing costs. This is shown by the current Rent Report from the German Tenants’ Association, for which the opinion research institute Forsa surveyed 1,021 tenants representatively. 52.8 percent of people in Germany live in rented accommodation, and 58 percent of them report increased expenses over the past year.
Almost one in three tenants (29 percent) worries about not being able to pay their rent in the future. Half of those surveyed are also concerned about not finding an affordable replacement apartment if needed. To cope with housing costs, many are forgoing savings and retirement provisions (52 percent), leisure activities (49 percent), or necessary purchases (46 percent).
The president of the Tenants’ Association, Melanie Weber-Moritz, said when presenting the report: “The housing crisis is becoming a social state crisis.” She criticizes the planned savings on housing benefits: “Cutting housing benefits does not solve a single problem in the housing market. It only worsens the consequences for people who are already suffering from high housing costs.”
The association demands a change of course in housing and social policy: a nationwide halt to rent increases, the construction of at least two million social housing units by 2030, and better tenant protection. Background: In Germany, around 1.4 million apartments are missing, and the number of social housing units is as low as ever at 1.03 million. The number of housing benefit recipients rose from around 600,000 households (2020) to 1.2 million by the end of 2024; the federal and state governments spent 4.7 billion euros on this.
Source: www.faz.net
