Germany's housing minister says people should move to countryside to find affordable housing

Klara Geywitz has some ideas on how to make smaller towns more attractive to settle down

Two decades ago, Berlin used to be a city where it was fairly easy to find housing aided by the fact that the government had also set up legislation that makes it almost impossible for landlords to raise rents on their tenants. In the past decade, however, the German capital has experienced an influx of new residents drawn by the opportunities of the big city, in addition to two major refugee waves caused by the wars in Syria and Ukraine.

The above effect has resulted in a shortage of available housing, something that is now the standard in the other major German cities as well. New construction has also been stifled due to a rise in construction materials as part of the inflation surge. That has disincentivized developers to build for-profit housing.

Trying to offer a solution, the country’s housing minister, Klara Geywitz, has resorted to urging people to move to the countryside where “almost 2 million houses are empty”

“Two-thirds of the German population live in regions where housing is affordable,” said Geywitz, quoted by I Am Expat. “But there is a huge demand in our large cities and metropolitan areas."

What’s the plan?

Minister Geywitz promised that by the end of the year, Germany will have a working plan on how to achieve that more precisely.

The problem is that during the coronavirus pandemic, rural housing suddenly became very attractive, especially in the suburbs, which meant an increase in its prices, too.

Geywitz is betting on the increased popularity of working from home. Reportedly, almost a quarter of Germans work at least partially from home.

That’s why, her idea is to make working in the countryside more attractive and virtually indistinguishable from working in the city.

This will mean things like creating incentives for employees to work from home, improving public transport between large cities and surrounding towns and villages and developing the country’s fibre optic Internet network.