Voters backed a radical proposal to nationalize big landlords, a bid to get rents under control and fix a housing crisis in the city. The housing divide is often split along generational lines, with the young locked out of the market. At the same time, house prices rose faster than inflation in all 27 European Union countries in 2020, a trend not observed in at least two decades. In Germany, where nearly 50% of households are tenants, an average person spends just over a quarter of their disposable income on housing. Average housing costs are about 40% of disposable income, twice the EU average, and 37% are in arrears on mortgage, rent or utility bills.
