Given Berlin’s strained housing market, it is almost impossible for low-income residents to find an affordable apartment. Berlin’s Left Party, Greens, and also the SPD have therefore proposed measures to require private real estate companies to rent out a portion of their apartments at reduced prices to low-income earners. An expert report by the Bundestag’s Scientific Service has now concluded that the state of Berlin has the legislative authority required to do so. But that hardly puts all concerns to rest.

The report was commissioned by Bundestag member Hakan Demir, who also sits on the executive committee of the Berlin SPD. In an Instagram reel titled “Rental Market Revolution,” Demir and Steffen Krach hold up the report. “The state of Berlin can implement this quota—this report shows that,” Demir says. Steffen Krach, the SPD’s lead candidate and challenger to CDU’s Kai Wegner, adds: “So CDU: watch out, because this is a revolution!”

So CDU: watch out, because this is a revolution!

Steffen Krach, SPD lead candidate

SPD, Greens, and Left want to introduce social housing quotas for landlords

According to the SPD’s proposal, a new Housing Security Act would oblige private landlords with more than 500 apartments to allocate a so-called social housing quota of 30 percent to households with a housing entitlement certificate (Wohnberechtigungsschein, WBS). This instrument is intended to place greater obligations on unregulated housing stock and is to be introduced before the election in September 2026.

The Greens are pursuing similar plans. Private landlords with 50 or more apartments would be required under an “Affordable Rents Act” to provide social housing. The plan envisions quotas of 10 to 30 percent (graduated according to the size of the portfolio) for WBS-eligible households at rents set 20 percent below the local comparative rent, aiming to reduce costs for up to 100,000 apartments.

The Left Party has also presented a draft “Secure Housing Act,” which likewise contains a social quota for private landlords, and backed up this demand in December with a short study entitled “Housing Emergency,” prepared by social scientist Andrej Holm. This would require landlords with 50 or more residential units to rent out at least every third vacant apartment at a reduced rate to households holding a housing entitlement certificate.

Social housing quota to secure 17,000 affordable apartments per year

SPD politician Demir is not the only one who sees the expert report as confirming the prospects for such a quota. “The report once again shows that Berlin could do more to tackle the housing shortage than it has so far. With our ‘Secure Housing Act,’ 17,000 additional apartments would be rented out at affordable prices every year,” says Niklas Schenker, housing policy spokesperson for the Left parliamentary group.

Demir does not fear that a social housing quota for private landlords would meet the same fate as Berlin’s rent cap, which was struck down by the Federal Constitutional Court. “The state government must embed the quota in the Housing Security Act. Unlike the rent cap, this is not merely about regulating rent levels and private-law contracts, but about allocating specific tenants to specific apartments,” the SPD politician told the Berliner Morgenpost on Friday. According to the report, the latter falls under state jurisdiction, whereas the former is a federal matter.

“The CDU must not miss this opportunity to create affordable housing for many Berliners. As the SPD, we are at the beginning of the persuasion process,” Demir adds. That is a very optimistic formulation, given their coalition partner’s terse reaction: “I’m not commenting on that,” says Dirk Stettner, parliamentary group leader of the CDU in the Berlin House of Representatives.

CDU firmly rejects social housing quota in Berlin

CDU Bundestag member Jan-Marco Luczak makes unmistakably clear what the Union thinks of such a quota. “From a macroeconomic perspective, a social housing quota would be madness,” says the chair of the Berlin state group within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. He argues that the unconstitutional rent cap had already caused the Berlin housing market to collapse dramatically once before. “Ever new and even stricter regulatory fantasies undermine all the successes achieved by the CDU-led Senate in faster and more cost-effective construction, and will drive even the last private investor out of Berlin,” Luczak says.

Criticism has also come from the BBU Association of Berlin-Brandenburg Housing Companies. According to the association, the report merely examines, in abstract terms, the question of the division of legislative competences between the federal government and the states. “Key questions and prerequisites for such a legislative intervention, as well as the necessary legally secure design, are not clarified,” says BBU spokesperson David Eberhart. In addition to questions around occupancy obligations or the handling of smaller private landlords, the necessary financial compensation for companies is also not addressed.

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“The new report on the social quota suggests that the state could simply order investors to rent cheaply without putting any money on the table itself,” notes Frederik Schneider, deputy managing director of the BFW state association Berlin/Brandenburg, which represents the interests of medium-sized private housing companies.

“Even if the state of Berlin had the legislative competence for a mandatory social quota, that does not mean it would also be constitutional,” Schneider warns. The quota, according to Schneider, would constitute a massive interference with property rights and occupational freedom. “After the rent-cap disaster, Berlin would once again risk legal disputes all the way to Karlsruhe,” Schneider says.

This article was originally written and published on the 7th of February in German. It was translated in English with the use of Artificial Intelligence.