BERLIN: WILL IT REMAIN A CITY FOR ALL?

Aspiring artist, Andrea Rausa packed his bags and left Rome, the city he had lived in for more than twenty years, in search of creative inspiration as part of Berlin’s artist community.

He found that in one of Berlin’s hotspot areas, Kreuzberg: a mix between run-down, edgy and hipster with street art, a diverse cultural scene and trendy cafes and bars at every corner.

For the past year, Rausa and his nine-year-old daughter have lived in a share house but now it’s time to find an apartment for just the two of them.

Rausa thinks he will have to farewell his beloved neighbourhood and “reorganise my [his] life”. 

“What I will lose for sure is that sense of community that I have here," he said.

He still wants to live within the very popular ring; the train line that forms a ring around the inner-city.

“That’s the problem, everybody wants to stay in the same places within the ring- so there’s a huge demand over a very small piece of Berlin and if you’re an artist, it’s even smaller,” Rausa said.

Rausa is one of many who will have to leave his neighbourhood to find an affordable place as rising rent and apartment shortages push people to the outskirts of Berlin.

Anyone who has either moved to Berlin or has tried to find a new apartment knows that when someone says, “Good luck”, they really mean it because you’ll need it.

This has been the case for Lucas de Boer who moved with his young family across the globe to start a new life in Berlin.

In the space of three years, the family of four moved eight times before finally securing a long-term rental apartment just after the first lockdown last year.

The 35-year-old Australian who works for a tech company in Berlin said he could “charitably” describe the apartment searching experience as “horrific”.

“It was one of initial optimism, followed by sort of a long, slow decline and a sense of hopelessness,” de Boer said.

The length of their stay at each apartment was limited to a matter of months before they had to move along to the next one; their longest stay was just under a year.

“The constant pressure in the back of your mind was, don't settle in, don't get used to it, we're going to have to move soon and that impacts every other area of your life,” he said.

 Another challenge was the physical move itself which cost time, money and energy.

Andrea Wesson, 59, is a true Berliner, growing up in the city when it was divided by the wall and there when it fell.

On her Saturday afternoon walk, it’s not unusual for her to see big lines in front of apartment blocks with up to 15 families waiting for an apartment inspection.

 When her husband passed away in March last year, she no longer felt comfortable and was unsure whether she could finance her 115-squared meter, four-bedroom apartment with a garden and balcony.

“When you walk through the streets, often there's little papers on a tree or lamppost where it says, a young family with two kids is looking for an affordable place," she said.

With a contract from 2007 and a four-bedroom apartment located within the ring for just 1065 euros, it took only ten minutes before Andrea was swamped with requests after uploading photos of her apartment to Tauschwohnung (an apartment exchange platform).

Wesson visited 12 families who were very eager to swap with her considering the price.

The average monthly rent today for a three-bedroom apartment within the ring is 1,945.81 euros

“What I found was, either these flats were in a very, very bad condition like the bathroom hadn't been renovated for 20 years or the rent was higher for a two and a half room flat than my four-room flat,” she said.

“Every time I had to say, sorry, but it's not what I wanted, or it's expensive, I always saw this big disappointment in their eyes,” Wesson recalled.

She decided to stay in her apartment because she couldn’t find anything within a reasonable price range or in good condition.  

“The idea cannot be that I pay more and get less,” Wesson said.

One possible solution was the ‘Mietendeckel’, Berlin’s rent cap, which aimed to stop increasing prices by limiting how much landlords could charge.

In April, it was declared unconstitutional.

As a result, most tenants had to repay the money they saved from the rent cap. 

Michael Melchner, owner of an electronic music label, knows the joy that came with the rent cap and disappointment when it left.

 “I suddenly had to pay 170 euros less a month, so I was like, wow, that's amazing, that’s the price of my studio,” he said.

 Melchner said the removal of the rent cap “hit hard”.