Tourist flats choke Berlin housing supply

During the summer months Berlin comes alive with tourists. Many are attracted by the city's vibrant culture scene and hedonistic atmosphere. Last year, there were some 28 million overnight stays. That's almost 8 million more than just five years ago. Clearly, Berlin is increasingly attractive to travelers - but there's a flipside, too.

Trawling through a dozen aparment rental portals, Berlin's city council found 23,000 flats on offer for tourists to rent throughout the city. This figure itself would hardly be newsworthy were it not for a law passed in early 2014 requiring owners of holiday homes to obtain an official license from the city.

Only 5,700 apartments were accredited. This means that, if the study's findings are accurate, Berlin has some 17,000 illegal holiday homes. That's three times the number of officially accredited tourist apartments.

Berlin's strained housing market

Berlin's current population of 3.4 million in 2015 is expected to grow to 3.6 million over the next two decades. To cope with the demands of a growing city, an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 housing units have to be built every year.

In 2014, the city council passed a law requiring owners of holiday homes to obtain an operating license. The law was designed to limit the misappropriation of apartments and to ensure enough spaces remained available for long-term residents. But it hasn't seemed to work. Despite fines of up to 50,000 euros for those caught infringing against the law, tourists still have an abundance of choice when selecting amongst holiday homes.

A crude law?

But not all are in favor the law. Some warn that it unfairly punishes those who rent out their apartments for short periods while on holiday to earn a pocket money. Indeed, this argument is put forth by the operators of airbnb.com, a website which has made it easy for users to rent out their apartments.

This sentiment is echoed by Sara, who until recently was living in Berlin's up and coming district of Neukölln. She told DW that she used to occasionally rent out her flat while on holiday until one day she found an eviction notice in her letter box.

"The letter didn't differentiate between full-time holiday apartments and occasional subletting to tourists" she complained. Sara stressed that while she does agree that Berlin already has an oversupply of holiday flats, she never intended to turn a profit by subletting hers.

The pressure on Berlin's housing market does not stem from people like Sara. However, the law does not distinguish between renters subletting when they're away, and individuals buying and renting flats for the sole purpose of turning them into holiday homes - which is a much more potent factor in the scarcity of living space.