[parasight]

Buying the apartments is a short term solution to take pressure off of low income tenants. This is not about supply and demand. Increasing supply is a mid to long term solution.

By the way, land is also limited in Berlin and therefore expensive. Makes building cheap apartments difficult.

[daverol]

Sometimes there is no intention to build, just use the German market as a cover for a ponzi scheme, see <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55077709>

[qeternity]

> By the way, land is also limited in Berlin and therefore expensive. Makes building cheap apartments difficult.

This is the other reality of free markets and scarce resources: if there is only so much land in Berlin, and lots of people want to live in Berlin, then it means some people won’t be able to. That’s just the reality. Unfortunately that means people who can’t afford have to move. As sad as that is, we don’t have a better system for allocating scarce resources sustainably.

[djbebs]

Land is limited for political reasons.

[hezag]

Unless you are talking about borders or about the concept of property, land is not limited for political reasons. It's limited for physical reasons.

[iso1210]

The number of apartments per square metre is limited by political reasons (ban on high buildings, minimum size etc)

20 years ago when I moved to London I'd have loved to find a tiny self contained Japanese style 10 square metre apartment[0], which is cheaper (in actuality, not just inflationwise) and far nicer and featureful than the HMO I ended up in.

https://www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com/tiny-house-tours/tiny-...

[brigandish]

> Thankfully, some clever design elements allows the micro apartment to be a very functional and cosy home.

Does anyone who has lived in Japan and abroad think there is anything "cosy" about Japanese housing?

It's cramped, of poor quality, and manages to be colder than the outside in winter and warmer than the outside in summer. I've seen some crap properties in London but Japan takes the biscuit.

[iso1210]

A dingy bedsit with a shower in one corner, a sink in one corner, a bed in one corner and a door in one corner, with a shared toilet down the hall. That cost me £520 a month in 2003 (similar places are £800 today)

A Japanese micro apartment for less than half that price [0] would have been far better.

Same with hotels. I still go to London fairly frequently, in fact I had 3 nights there this week. I turn up to the hotel, sleep in a bed, have a shower, then leave, maybe with breakfast. For that I'm charged £90 plus.

[0] https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn20200211001/tokyo%E2%80%99...

[brigandish]

I'm not sure how your comparison of personal experience against prices you pulled off the internet makes the standard of Japanese building any better?

You can find cheap rooms in either city, you can find bargains in either city, what you won't find en masse in Tokyo (nor any other city in Japan as far as I'm aware) is housing with walls that seem like walls and not paper, with insulation, and you certainly won't find central heating.

[pantalaimon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Tempelhof_Airport