In Hamburg, up to 180,000 households have to expect rent increases these days. The tenants’ association in Hamburg has identified strong price increases because the new rent index has risen by an average of 7.3 percent.
Since the beginning of the year, tens of thousands of Hamburg residents have seen a rent increase letter in their mailbox. Marielle Eifler, vice chair of the tenants’ association, explained in an interview with NDR 90.3: “Since the rent index has risen so sharply, we expect that about a third of households will have to pay more. We can hardly save ourselves from work at the moment.”
Rent increases: blatant cases, not all legal
The association checks hundreds of letters of increase, including blatant cases: apartments from the 1960s and 1970s, which legally increased in price by up to eleven percent. But some landlords would forget that they had recently increased and thus disregarded the cap limit, says Eifler. A maximum of 15 percent more is permitted within three years.
Others would demand the upper value of the rent index field and not the mean. The tenants’ association in Hamburg offers this a free online check an.
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Social landlords hardly want to increase
Hamburg’s social landlords hardly implement the permitted rent increases. This resulted in a request from NDR 90.3. Cooperatives and SAGA hold 260,000 apartments in Hamburg, every third apartment is rented. The average rent is 6.20 euros per square meter. In the future, it should remain far below the rent index of 9.29 euros, explains its housing association VNW. This means that the rents continue to diverge.
SAGA wants to increase by a maximum of five percent
SAGA stated: “We have limited rent increases to a maximum of 5 percent.” Last year, the rent was only adjusted in every sixth apartment – by a maximum of 30 euros a month. Social housing is not included in the rent index. Hamburg’s oldest housing association, der Schiffszimmerer, is now increasing by 3 percent due to cost increases. Last year she did a clear round because of the corona pandemic. Even the Eisenbahner Bauverein Harburg does not exhaust the framework of the rent index with 5 percent.
Rent is getting more and more expensive
Since 2019, the average net cold rent in Hamburg has increased by 63 cents to 9.29 euros per square meter, as published in mid-December Reassessment of the rent index emerges. The large rental housing stocks from the post-war period, which were built between 1948 and 1960 and account for 30 percent of the Hamburg rental market, became particularly expensive. Rents climbed there in smaller apartments by 10.6 percent. Rents for new buildings have also risen rapidly. Hamburg’s particularly large new apartments cost up to 17 euros per square meter.
The rent index of the Hanseatic city has been collected since 1976 and is published every two years. In a comparison of the current rent index, Hamburg is behind Munich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main.
