Thousands of people took to the streets in the German capital, Berlin, on Saturday to protest against rising rents, with other protests also staged in Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich.

DW's Jordan Wildon was at Berlin's well-known Alexanderplatz square as the protest got underway.

Organizers claimed 40,000 people attended the central event in Berlin, while the police announced only that the crowd numbered "far more than 10,000." The protesters marched through several city districts where people feel they are being priced out of their apartments.

"There's a massive sell-off happening in this city," Kreuzberg resident Paul Afred Kleinert said said at the event. According to the German author and translator, foreign real estate investors are especially keen on raising rents.

"Entire streets have been purchased by Japanese, Norwegian or American consortiums," Kleinert added.

Housing rents, particularly in Berlin, have doubled over the past decade, as Germany's booming job market continues to attract a large number of workers. This has put pressure on the housing market: Average rents in Berlin have pushed past €10 ($11.23) per square meter per month, according to a recent study by real estate group CBRE Berlin and German mortgage bank Berlin Hyp AG.

Read more: Germany's soaring housing prices spark calls for reform

Government intervention

Protesters are demanding the government step in and take control of the situation. On Saturday, they began gathering signatures for a petition that would see Berlin take over nearly 250,000 apartments from big rental companies. The move, coordinated by the Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co. initiative, targets the biggest private rental player in Berlin, a company called Deutsche Wohnen. The firm owns 111,500 apartments, followed by Vonovia with 44,000.

If the housing activists gather 20,000 signatures, Berlin's government would be required to consider the idea. If their response is not to the protesters' satisfaction, they have the option of gathering another 170,000 signatures by February 2020 to force a referendum on the issue.

The latest polls show a narrow majority of Berliners support the initiative.

In turn, Deutsche Wohnen said that selling their apartments to the city would not solve the crisis.

"Expropriation is creating a lot of emotions right now, but it won't create a single apartment," CEO Michael Zahn told the Associated Press news agency.

Additionally, such expropriation could cost the heavily-indebted city some €37 billion in compensation payments, according to the Berlin government. Housing activists have estimated the cost to be significantly lower.

Christian Pestalozza, a constitutional and public law professor at Berlin's Free University, believes the situation invokes Article 15 of the German constitution, or Basic Law, which provides for the "socialization" of "land, natural resources and means of production" by transferring it to public ownership.

Housing associations and developers have argued that expropriation won't solve the problem, saying the growing city urgently needs more housing — preferably in the form of new subsidized housing projects.

Activists, meanwhile, believe affordable rent is not only a necessity — they say it's central to the city's character.

"There needs to be some rules here for the game — it's a city, not just open land for people to do what they want," said Thomas McGath, a representative of Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co., the group behind the campaign against rising rents. "It is not something that can be completely determined by the market."

The rental difference between privately and publicly owned houses in Germany has substantially increased in recent years, though they are still cheaper than in other major European capitals like Paris and London.

German housing crisis sparks new web portal to help people find homes

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'Class struggle'

Campaign organizers complain the government's measures to cool off the property market have failed.

"Many say this is a type of class struggle. Yes, that's what it is. But we did not start it. We are taking defensive measures against the class struggler from the top who has for years been fighting against tenants," campaign spokesman Rouzbeh Taheri told media ahead of the rally in Berlin.

Taheri believes it's necessary to cut these companies down to size, stripping them of the influence they wield on determining market prices.

"It is about sending a signal on which direction the city wants to go. And a signal to speculators — telling them that your capital is not safe in Berlin," Taheri said.

"We have to live somewhere. It's unacceptable for housing to become a commodity that is sold off, where the only concern is profit," said rental activist Daniel Diekmann.

Diekmann fully supports the referendum — he has been campaigning for housing rights for the last decade. He's lived on the same street in central Berlin for the last 16 years, and has witnessed how investors have sold off part of the 106 apartments in his building and modernized them, making way for luxury flats. Some 80 tenants have already moved away.

For Diekmann, it was time to do something. "The problem has made its way into mainstream society," he said.

"Having a place to live is a human right."

Smaller protests took place Saturday in other cities across Germany such as Munich, Cologne and Dresden. Protest organizers spoke of demonstrations in 19 cities with 55,000 participants.

Read more: German real estate: Renters' woes are speculators' profits

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Rental barracks Berlin's endless rows of tenements were once horribly overcrowded, with large families often living in one- or two-room flats. But in recent years, these so-called Altbau, or old buildings, have enjoyed a rapid renaissance. These blocks in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin were, until the early 1990s, often empty and in a state of severe disrepair. Now everyone wants to rent an Altbau.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Plattenbau In former East Germany, where nearly all accommodation was rented from the government, prefab concrete housing blocks known as Plattenbau rose up across the communist nation. Not only were they cheap, but they were often preferred to Altbau apartments because they offered all modern conveniences like new plumbing that didn't leak, reliable electricity and hot water.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Balconies According to the most recent statistics from Statista (2015), 48 percent of Germans rent and 52 percent are home-owners. Most renters live in apartments - and make the most of their balconies. Some barbeque or lounge, while others grow overflowing gardens that utilize every last inch of precious outdoor space. Balconies can be veritable ecosystems that become rather bleak in the winter months.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Courtyards In some Germans cities, particularly Berlin, rental houses are made up of front and back buildings separated by an inner courtyard through which the life of these rental communities ebb and flow. They are unique communal spaces across which people view each other's lives, and where they interact as they park their bicycles or access their numerous garbage bins.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Names instead of numbers Only the names of residents are used to identify the flats inside a building in Germany. These names on the intercom of a Hamburg apartment building typically have no corresponding flat number. That means you have to address letters to Germany clearly because the mail carrier only has the name to go by.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Flat sharing Known as WGs, or Wohngemeinschaften, shared apartments are popular in big cities where apartment prices are rising and availability is shrinking. People who share flats often also rent out the living area to bring prices down as much as possible. This is especially so in Berlin, a city full of artists, students and people on low budgets.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Paint when you leave Painting the apartment before you leave is another German rental tradition. Leaving the walls shiny white for the next residents isn't such a bad thing - but it means you have to spend days preparing walls and climbing ladders before you move out. Not all rental contracts force tenants to paint the apartment - however they are obliged to leave it as they found it.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany BYO kitchen In some German cities, kitchens and appliances are not included in rental properties. That means the tenant has to purchase their own and have it installed at their expense. Alternatively, some people buy the previous tenant's kitchen at a discount if they aren't planning on taking it with them to their next living space.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Small bathrooms in old rental buildings Among the quirks of Altbau apartments is that many didn't use to include facilities, which were sometimes shared communally. That means that you'll find bathrooms today that are wedged into the smallest - and oddest - spaces. Or, in some cases, they might be huge and replace an entire former room. This shower in a Berlin flat was built in the kitchen cupboard.

What to know before renting an apartment in Germany Not all rooms are bedrooms When scanning apartment listings in Germany, you'll generally find the sizes given in square meters and the number of rooms. The latter includes not just bedrooms, but also living space. The kitchen and bathroom(s) are listed separately. Apartments are most expensive in Munich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart, where new tentants pay on average 16.55, 13.37 and 12.95 euros per square meter respectively. Author: Stuart Braun



dj, shs/jlw (dpa, AP, AFP)

With additional reporting by Leonie von Hammerstein

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