AfD on housing

The AfD wants to stabilize rents and prices by increasing the housing supply. Building land would be designated faster and building rights created more quickly. The state would also relieve municipalities of the follow-on costs of housing construction.

Many cities have too few homes. The AfD wants more new homes. For this, land for building should be made available faster. Permits should come faster. The state should help towns with the costs.

The platform names a lack of new construction, people leaving rural areas, more single-person households, and migration as causes of the tight market. Besides land, faster permits should also make it easier to extract building materials such as gravel and to dispose of construction waste. Many municipalities cannot afford new housing because it brings daycare centers, schools, and roads with it; the state should help here.

The AfD wants to make housing cheaper by lowering building standards and scrapping the CO2 charge. Building law would also be simplified and unified nationwide. Permits would be processed faster and more digitally.

Building is expensive. The AfD wants to lower the costs. The CO2 charge should go. The rules for fire safety, insulation, and noise protection should be looser. Building law should be the same and simpler across Germany.

The platform considers current standards and requirements excessive. Rules on fire protection, thermal insulation, and soundproofing would cover only what is strictly necessary. The AfD also expects savings from standardization and therefore calls for uniform building law across Germany. Faster procedures would come from less bureaucracy and digital permitting.

The AfD wants to help more people own their homes, saying ownership builds wealth and eases costs in old age. Public housing companies would have to sell their apartments to tenants. Locals and housing cooperatives would get preference in allocations.

The AfD wants more people to own their home. Tenants in public housing should be allowed to buy their apartment. Local people should come first for building plots. Housing cooperatives should also get land more easily. Young families should be able to lease land.

State and municipal housing companies would be required to offer their stock to tenants for purchase, under conditions still to be defined. In growing urban areas, locals would get priority over outsiders for plots and apartments under the so-called Einheimischen-Modell (locals-first model). The AfD sees heritable building rights, a long-term land lease, as an entry point for young families because the land does not have to be bought. Housing cooperatives would get preference when building land is allocated.

The AfD wants to support low-income renters through Wohngeld (housing benefit) rather than social housing. In its view, social housing leads to units being occupied by people no longer eligible and cannot meet demand. Where Wohngeld is not enough, a municipal housing benefit would be added.

The AfD wants to rely less on social housing. People with little money should get a housing benefit. That is money to help pay the rent. In expensive cities, the town should pay an extra benefit. Cities should also secure homes for people in need.

According to the platform, many social housing residents lose their eligibility over time but stay, while eligible people go without. Housing benefit, by contrast, is paid only as long as someone is in need and keeps neighborhoods socially mixed. For groups that cannot find a home even with the benefit, cities would buy occupancy rights from landlords. The AfD is critical of further state regulation of the housing market.

The AfD rejects rent brakes, rent freezes, and bans on privatizing housing. In its view, such interventions worsen the problems of a housing market that would work without the state.

The AfD does not want rent caps. It does not want rent freezes either. The state should not ban the sale of public housing. The AfD says the housing market works better without these rules.

The platform calls rent brakes, rent freezes, and privatization bans overregulation. According to the AfD, state intervention makes the housing market work worse. These tools should therefore not be used.

The AfD wants to loosen fire safety and heritage protection rules. In its view, these requirements make it uneconomical to keep village inns and historic town centers.

The AfD wants looser rules for fire safety. The same goes for protecting old buildings. The AfD says many village inns close because of these rules. Fixing up old houses costs too much.

The platform counts rural inns among cultural institutions and social meeting places. The AfD blames the closure of many inns on fire safety rules it considers excessive. In its account, entire historic town centers also suffer from strict requirements. More leeway in building law is meant to make renovation and preservation worthwhile again.