Berlin x Airbnb

Airbnb, the giant of housing sector’s online bookings, seems to suffer from new restrictions of the Berlin government.

The city of the German capital took a controversial decision at the end of April, banning the rental of entire apartments to tourists through Airbnb, Wimdu and 9flats portals. The action reportedly aims to protect the local real estate market, because since the rise of online contracts, the number of properties available for long-term rental has suffered drastic reductions.

In view of these housing deficit problems in the city, a law called “Zweckentfremdungsverbot” was established, which imposes fines that can reach up to 100 thousand euros for owners who insist on rent their properties on the Internet.

There are many movements in the city for and against the decision. On the one hand there is the economic argument, as in Berlin there are approximately 12,000 properties listed as available for rent online. On the other hand, it’s clear and increasingly famous the difficulty of being able to rent an apartment. Actually most of the times the Berliners need to go through a huge ritual of numerous interviews with the tenants to finally get a new address.

Very recently, new residents in the city (which includes medium and long-term language students), could make their register in the city (Anmeldung), simply using the Airbnb booking voucher. It seems that those days are left behind…

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