Photo: DPAResearch published by a leading economic institute on Wednesday shows that the much lamented rent control law has had some effect in slowing down the pace of rental increases. Given the fact that average rents in some German cities have risen by close to 50 percent over the past decade, there were high hopes for the Mietpreisbremse (rent control law) when it was introduced in 2015. The rent control stipulates that new rental contracts cannot exceed 10 percent of the average price of an apartment in the area. “The rent control law is better than its reputation - the expectations were simply too high,” said Andreas Mense, another researcher on the team. But they warned that the rental control law in itself was not enough to solve Germany’s growing housing problems.

Source: The Local February 14, 2018 15:33 UTC