With national German elections coming up in September this year, one political party is clearly in the ascendancy, and that's the Greens. Whatever happens between now and the election, it looks increasingly likely that the Greens will be sharing power at the top table, if not actually playing the lead role.
Angela Merkel is bowing out as the head of the CDU/CSU union of centre-right parties, and her party may suffer heavily at the polls, as it did recently in the two state elections in Baden-Wurttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The centrist Greens are likely to be big winners on the national stage too, and it's not impossible that Green Party leader Robert Habeck might even emerge as the chancellor in a coalition with Merkel's battered union and the liberal FDP, or even with the left of centre SPD and the hard left Die Linke.
The party has just published its provisional manifesto for the upcoming elections, and like the other parties, the burning issue of property and housing is front and centre of their programme, called "Germany - everything is possible" ("Deutschland, alles ist drin"). The full document contains 136 main proposals, which will be put to the party's Congress in June for ratification. Here we take a look at some of the key planks of the Green Party manifesto:
For the real estate industry, the Greens are proposing a permanent rent cap on residential rents, and the lowering of brokerage fees on real estate transactions.
An additional €50bn a year, financed by loans, will be invested in the 'social-ecological transformation' of the economy and society over the coming decade. This would involve 'modernising' the debt brake anchored in the country's Basic Law for this purpose. Some of these investments would flow into the construction and housing sector, which would also be subject to an additional raft of new regulations.
A new federal programme called the Neue Wohngemeinnützigkeit, or New Residential Community Benefit, will be created as part of the Greens' efforts to revive the not-for-profit residential approach. This would provide a million additional affordable rental apartment in metropolitan areas over the coming years, on a 'safe and permanent' basis. The remaining state-owned property and land holdings would no longer be sold to private investors, but would be sold 'exclusively at reduced prices to municipalities with a permanent social commitment.'
The Greens want to impose rent ceilings on existing properties by means a federal law, as well as removing the limit on duration and a tightening up of the nationwide rent brake ('Mietpreisbremse'). Regular rent increases will be limited to 2.5% per year within the area of the comparative rent index (Mietpreisspiegel), in effect introducing a nationwide rent cap. For the purposes of calculating this local rent 'table', a period of the last 20 years will be used, not the current six years.
The modernisation levy which is paid by the tenant when the landlord upgrades the property will be lowered and limited to a maximum of €1.50 per sqm, 'in order to enable energy-saving improvements to be carried out without adding to the applicable 'warm rent'.
The ban on converting rental apartments into condominiums for sale, which is integrated into the Building Code and local Milieuschutz measures (to protect the character of a neighbourhood) will be extended and intensified, with the rights of the municipality to have first refusal considerably strengthened. The idea is that "usurious rents must be specifically punished under Section 5 of the Economic Criminal Code'.
Germany's Bima, the Federal Agency for Public Property, would be transformed into a "not-for-profit land fund". The fund would then strategically acquire new tracts of land and then transfer them to public welfare-oriented sponsors. The land would then be given preferentially on a leasehold basis so as to ensure land for building social housing on a long-term basis. Should they be sold, priority right of refusal would be granted to municipalities and local housing associations. The ensuing revenues would not be treated as part of Household revenue for the purposes of redistribution, but would be set aside for the purpose of buying additional land.
The Greens want to limit the real estate agency fee for brokerage to 2%, 'to prevent the agency fee being buried in the price leading to overall higher prices'. To encourage home ownership, the ancillary costs (Kaufnebenkosten) on a purchase will also be further lowered. The individual federal states will be enabled to increase the land transfer tax rate (Grunderwerbsteuersatz) for large housing companies, and to correspondingly lower it for private buyers. Participation in co-operative and joint purchases by tenants will be actively promoted, for example through favourable loans or guarantees for the buying parties.
A new Building Resources Act as well as a Wood Construction Strategy will be introduced in order to promote sustainable and resource-conserving housebuilding. The Greens are also promoting the establishment of New urban development funding to improve inner-cities and small town centres.
The Greens will immediately raise the minimum wage to €12.00. There will be a right for all workers to work from a home office, but there must also be a workspace available for all employees in the company. The notion of 'full-time' will become an elective working time of between 30 and 40 hours per week.
The social-welfare recipient status known as Hartz IV is to give way to a guaranteed income without sanctions.
CO2 emissions are to be reduced by 70% by 2030 instead of the 55% previously targeted. Meanwhile, a CO2 brake will be introduced to ensure that all laws comply with national climate protection targets. The CO2 price is to rise more quickly, from the current €25 per ton to €60 euros per ton in 2023, with the additional revenue to be returned to the people "fairly divided per capita" in the form of an "energy fee."
