Provide affordable housing for ordinary Germans?

May 22, 2025 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Building, Bureaucracy, Construction, Germany, Government, Housing Leave a comment

That ought to be easy enough.

I mean, how many ordinary Germans can there be?

Chancellor Merz pledges affordable housing for ordinary Germans – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that the government wants to do more to make housing affordable for ordinary people again.

“Anyone earning a normal income in Germany should be able to buy a normal home,” Merz said at the Construction Industry Conference in Berlin.

“We are determined to … get things moving so that building in Germany becomes faster, easier and cheaper, enabling the average family in Germany to afford their own home as a rule,” Merz asserted.

Yes, but we’re rebuilding it thoroughly

August 23, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Bureaucracy, Construction, Germany, Government, Museums, Planning, Projects Leave a comment

We’re from the government and we’re here to help.

The rebuilding of Berlin’s Pergamon Museum is 40 years behind schedule – It’s yet another German construction debacle.

Almost 25 years ago, in October 1999, Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s then chancellor, attended a ceremony to mark the renovation of Berlin’s Old National Gallery, one of five world-class museums that constitute the Museumsinsel (Museum Island) in Berlin. Mr Schröder talked about the courage and vision needed to rebuild the rest of the quintet within ten years. “We will manage this,” he promised…

German of the day: Zusammenbruch

November 13, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Building, Construction, Economy, German, Germany, Housing, Language, Real Estate, Red Tape Leave a comment

That means collapse.

German homebuilding collapse threatens wider economic damage – Once-thriving residential construction industry has slumped, posing drag on EU’s largest economy.

Across Germany, homebuilders are facing such a sharp reversal in their fortunes that the downturn in residential construction is threatening to have broader repercussions across Europe’s largest economy.

Many have declared themselves insolvent, dampening Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s target of building 400,000 new homes a year to tackle a housing affordability crisis in several of the country’s largest cities.

Largest housing price drop in 2000 years?

September 23, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Construction, Economy, Germany, Housing, Prices, Real Estate, Rents Leave a comment

Damn. That’s a big drop.

Oh. Since the year 2000. But still.

German housing prices show sharpest drop since 2000 year over year, statistics office says – German housing prices fell by the most since records began in the second quarter as high interest rates and rising materials costs took their toll on the property market in Europe’s largest economy, government data showed on Friday.

Residential property prices fell by 9.9% year-on-year, the steepest decline since the start of data collection in 2000, the federal statistics office said. Prices fell by 1.5% on the quarter, with steeper declines in larger cities than in more sparsely populated areas.

Step One: Do everything you can to make it difficult to build new housing…

August 27, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: Construction, Germany, Government, Housing, Political Parties, Politicians, Regulation, Renters, Rents, SPD Leave a comment

Step two: Once rent prices explode due to step one, introduce a rent freeze to end the few meager building projects still in operation.

Go Social Democracy!

Germany’s ruling party plans to curb rent increases – SPD set to unveil measures to tackle soaring costs facing tenants, says senior lawmaker.

Germany’s ruling Social Democratic party is set to propose a three-year rent break across the country, as tenants struggle to cope with the soaring cost of housing in Europe’s largest economy.

“We need to create breathing room — we need a rent freeze for the next three years,” senior SPD lawmaker Verena Hubertz told Bild am Sonntag, adding that Chancellor Olaf Scholz would outline measures on Monday to tackle the country’s cost of living crisis.

Must Be The Same Company That Built Berlin’s Airport

May 29, 2020 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hysteria Tags: Construction, Construction Projects, German, Germans, Germany, Pyramids, Time, Time Pyramids Leave a comment

That took (is taking?) absolutely forever. But sheesh. To take the next 1,000 years to build a stupid time pyramid? Talk about your long term planning.

Germans Are Building a Time Pyramid Over the Next 1,000 Years – A locally crowdfunded “time pyramid” in southern Germany will be completed brick by brick over the next 1,000 years. The project is an interesting symbol of several intersecting ideas. Can you guarantee future generations will comply with very long-term plans? How will the large concrete bricks hold up to a millennium of weather and beyond?

The Rents Won’t Be the Only Things That Will Freeze

December 10, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Building, Construction, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Housing, Left Party, Redistribution, Regulation, Rent Control, Rent Freeze, Rents, Social Democrats, Socialism, SPD Leave a comment

Building will come to a complete standstill in Berlin too.

But Berlin’s red-redder-green politicians (SPD, the Left Party, the Greens) don’t know anything about building (look at the state the city of Berlin is in). They can only tear things down. Oh, yes. And redistribute. They will redistribute for as long as it takes to get anybody who’s got anything to get out of town.

Berlin Builders Hit the Streets in Backlash Over Rent Freeze – The German capital’s government is trying to ease the burden on tenants after a property boom caused rents to double over the past decade. However, critics of the plan — including economists and large landlords — have said the only way to address growing demand for housing is to build more homes.

The rent-freeze legislation will start its passage through Berlin’s parliament this week and is expected to come into force in the first quarter of next year…

The city’s plans “threaten to cause considerable damage to both the housing market and Berlin as a whole,” IW institute economists wrote in a recent report for the Christian Democratic Union party, which is in opposition in Berlin and opposes the measures. Scrapping the plan is “urgently needed from an economic perspective to prevent wider damage to the Berlin economy,” they added.

German Of The Day: Enteignung

April 7, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Apartments, Berlin, Building, Construction, Gentrification, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Language, Political Parties, Property, Property Rights, Rents, SPD Leave a comment

That means confiscation or dispossession. You know, like confiscating private property?

And the German Greens hold this to be denkbar – another cool German word meaning conceivable or possible.

After all, the world must be fair and if rising property rents in cities like Berlin – caused by city governments like Berlin (Social Democrats and Greens for decades) – are creating hardship for the 85 percent (!) of Berliners who don’t own property – the government does everything it can to discourage owning property here – then the government that created this mess will simply confiscate the private property of those currently developing new housing and… And what? Give it to the poor? Been there, done that. We all know how that turns out. And who foots the bill. Robin Hoodlums never learn. They have no intention of learning.

Thousands took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday in protest against rising property rents and called for properties of large-scale landlords with more than 3,000 houses to be taken over by the government.

“Das Grundgesetz sieht Enteignungen zum Allgemeinwohl ausdrücklich vor.”

1,700 Affordable Homes To Be Built At Tempelhof Airport?

September 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helections, History, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Airports, Berlin, City Planning, Construction, German, Germans, Germany, Government, Homes, Humor, Tempelhof Leave a comment

Planned by Berlin’s city government? Shouldn’t they figure out how to build one affordable airport first?

I dunno. I still like that Tempelhof mountain thingy plan the best.

Tempelhof, whose stone-clad terminal built by the Nazis in the 1930s, was closed to air traffic in 2008 and its main building is used for events including an annual beer festival. The airfield, which has two runways, has been turned into parkland where visitors jog, roller-blade on the tarmac and barbecue.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Construction