SPD on housing

The SPD wants to make the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake), which expires at the end of 2025, permanent and extend it to buildings first occupied up to 2019. Loopholes are to be closed and tenants better protected against rent gouging and displacement.

The rent brake limits the rent in new leases. It ends in late 2025. The SPD wants it to stay for good. It should also cover newer buildings. The SPD wants to stop tricks that get around it.

Landlords should no longer be able to sidestep the brake with furnished or fixed-term offers. Index-linked leases would fall under the same caps as ordinary leases. Short-term rentals in metropolitan areas are to be cut to a minimum, and misuse and vacancy of housing are to be stopped. Against rent gouging, the SPD wants, among other things, tougher rules in economic criminal law. The option to ban converting rental units into condominiums is to continue beyond 2025, and evictions for personal use would be limited to the immediate family.

In tight housing markets, rents would be allowed to rise by no more than six percent over three years, and only up to the local reference rent. The SPD wants to halt rent growth in metropolitan areas and also ease tenants' burden from utility costs and property tax.

Rents are rising fast in many cities. The SPD wants to limit that. There, rent could go up by six percent at most in three years. Landlords should not pass the full property tax on to tenants.

The states would be allowed to set even stricter limits of their own in extremely tight markets. The rent index would in future reflect rents from ten years and include price-controlled housing. Utility bills are to become easier to understand. For property tax, owners would no longer be able to pass the entire burden on to their tenants.

The SPD wants students and apprentices to pay no more than about 400 euros for a room in a shared flat. To that end, more dormitories are to be built, the rent brake made easier to enforce, and the housing allowance in BAföG (student aid) raised regularly.

Rooms for students and trainees are often expensive. The SPD wants a shared-flat room to cost 400 euros at most, where possible. It wants more dorms to be built. A website should help lower rents that are too high.

Funding for student and apprentice dormitories is to be made permanent and increased, and the states are to actually use it for new construction. Together with student and apprentice service organizations, an online platform would act as a legal service provider and enforce rent-brake claims free of charge. If the rent is still above 400 euros after review and, where needed, a lawsuit, the platform would refund the difference. The BAföG housing allowance would automatically follow rent trends, similar to the housing benefit.

The SPD wants to keep investment in social housing permanently high, set up a federal housing company and pursue a socially oriented land policy. At the same time, construction costs are to fall and procedures to speed up. The platform treats housing as a public good that should not be left to the market alone.

There are too few cheap homes. The SPD wants more money for social housing. The federal government should start its own housing company. Cities should find it easier to buy land. Building should become faster and cheaper.

Through the Deutschlandfonds, housing companies and cooperatives would receive equity capital; for new builds under the rules of non-profit housing status, an investment grant is sought. The new federal company is meant to relieve the market and create homes for federal employees. Municipalities would get help building land funds, share in value gains created by planning, and receive a stronger right of first refusal. Less red tape, a digitized building administration, simpler standards such as Gebäudetyp E, and serial and modular construction are meant to cut costs and time. Subsidy programs would keep fixed terms for a whole legislative period, accessibility would become a funding standard, and homelessness is to be overcome by 2030.

The SPD wants to make buying a home easier, especially for young families in small towns and municipalities. The "Jung kauft Alt" (young buys old) subsidy program is to be made permanent and expanded. According to the platform, home ownership serves housing supply, wealth building and security in old age.

Many people dream of owning a home. The SPD wants to help. Young families should get cheap loans for older houses. Towns should be able to sell building land more cheaply to local people.

"Jung kauft Alt" supports buying existing houses with low-interest loans and grants for energy upgrades and, in the SPD's view, also revives town and village centers in rural areas. Local-resident models are to be strengthened so municipalities can offer discounted building land to people who live there. With concept-based awards, plots would not go only to the highest bidder but be allocated by criteria such as social mix, sustainable building and new forms of housing.