Maxim Bederov: Raising a land transfer tax would be toxic for new construction of affordable housing

Real estate developers and construction companies are alarmed. A simple subordinate clause in the red-green-red coalition agreement in the state of Berlin could make it more difficult to create affordable housing in the German capital.

Namely, it is about a possible increase in the land transfer tax. According to real estate expert and financier Maxim Bederov, one can read here that the government partners want to synchronise the assessment rate with Brandenburg. “What does synchronise mean?” he asks, “surely the Brandenburgers will not lower their assessment rate, so Berlin will raise its current assessment rate by another half a percentage point.
In a region where affordable housing urgently needs to be created because students and skilled workers are already unable to find affordable housing, this is counterproductive.”
The 90 to 120 million euros that Berlin will earn in land transfer tax, however, will be lost in purchasing power elsewhere. Namely with those who would then have to give the city a wide berth because they could not find adequate living space. In the long run, however, this purchasing power would be much higher than the quick cash that the future senate wants to make, says real estate expert Maxim Bederov.