Clampdown on Airbnb-style holiday rental market in Berlin
A new law, enacted two years ago but which only came into force on May 1st, aims to restrict private rentals through Airbnb and similar sites such as Wimdu and 9Flats, in a move which is designed to keep housing affordable for local Berlin residents and put a halt to rapidly-rising rent levels.
The law, known as Zweckentfremdungsverbot, or "prohibition of improper use", is designed to prevent Berliners renting out their apartments to tourists and thus limiting the supply of apartments coming to the market in the normal way.
Berlin has become one of Europe's major tourist magnets, with overnight stays last year numbering 31 million, according to official statistics. Research firm GBI estimates that private online bookings through sites such as Airbnb represented "a parallel market of an additional 6.1 million overnight stays" last year. This is significant enough to impact on the local hotel industry, say the GBI researchers, who put the figure of apartments being rented out to holidaymakers and other visitors at 24,000.
Other estimates put the figure even higher. But all agree that Berlin is by far the biggest market in Germany for private rentals, more than three times as many as the second most popular city – Hamburg – with just under 2 million privately rented overnight stays.
The new law seeks to limit the renting of accomodation via Airbnb and similar portals to rooms only, and not entire flats or houses. Fines of up to €100,000 are threatened to landlords not in possession of a special permit to rent their apartments out to tourists. The renting out of single rooms is still allowed, but only when the landlord also lives and is present in the apartment.
The main target of the new law is mainly smaller one-room (plus kitchen and bathroom) apartments, many of which have disappeared from official rental markets. Berlin has 75,000 such apartments, much too few for the actual demand for small-sized accomodation. (Given Germany's underdeveloped market for hostels and other inexpensive accomodation, this also partly explains the rapid growth in building of serviced and micro-apartments in the bigger cities, alongside student accomodation.)
The City of Berlin has already courted controversy by encouraging civic-minded citizens to anonymously 'denounce' their neighbours if they see the law being flouted, a measure which has drawn nasty parallels in the media with the practices prevailing under the Stasi in the days of East Berlin.
The numerous opponents of the new law argue that the city authorities are making scapegoats out of those who avail of Airbnb and the others, favouring the hotel industry and making Berliners pay for the city's own municipal failings in providing sufficient affordable housing.
Airbnb argues that the law won't have the effect of lowering rents, but will simply drain money from the city. In a statement from Airbnb Germany, spokesman Julian Trautwein said, "Berliners just want clear and simple rules for home sharing, so they can continue to share their own home with guests." He said the practice is not directly comparable with staying in a hotel, and that visitors were looking for a different kind of cultural experience.
"We will continue to encourage Berlin policy-makers to listen to their citizens and to follow the example of other big cities such as Paris, London, Amsterdam or Hamburg and create new, clear rules for normal people who are sharing their own homes," he said.
A new movement seems to be growing, with property owners forming the "Apartments Allianz" to look after their own interests and refute the charge of being greedy capitalists exploiting their access to property at the expense of fellow Berliners. They're arguing that they are net contributors to the overall positive image that Berlin enjoys worldwide.