The social housing quota is a new glimmer of hope in Berlin’s rent crisis. The idea: Private landlords are obliged to rent part of their housing stock to lower-income people. The amount of rent is also capped at a certain value; there is no compensation for the owners.
Both the Greens, the Left and, more recently, the SPD see the quota as an effective instrument for creating affordable housing on a large scale. Now probably a new report from the Scientific Service of the Bundestag give the idea a boost. Accordingly, the states and not the federal government have the legislative authority to enact a social housing quota.
The report was commissioned by SPD member of the Bundestag Hakan Demir. It wasn’t until the end of January that word got out The Berlin SPD made a decision in its parliamentary group meeting to introduce the quota.
That would be a small revolution and would bring a sigh of relief to the rental market
Hakan Demir, SPD
“The social housing quota would apply to the new building and the existing building when it is re-let,” explains Demir to the taz. Large housing companies would be obliged to rent 30 percent of their apartments to households entitled to a housing entitlement certificate (WBS). “That would be a small revolution and would bring a sigh of relief to the rental market,” says Demir.
The report contradicts legal concerns, according to which the instrument after its introduction – how the rent cap 2021 – could be confiscated by the Federal Constitutional Court. The experts’ justification is interesting: According to this, the regulation of rent-controlled living space would generally fall under state authority, while the free housing market should be assigned to civil law, which is regulated by the federal government.
The rent cap failed because, despite the cap, tenancies on the free housing market essentially remained free contracts between two private contractual partners – and therefore civil law. However, the social housing quota now has a much deeper impact on the contractual relationship. In particular, the experts point out, landlords can no longer freely choose their contractual partners. These would be specified by the Senate through the WBS obligation. The quota apartments would therefore be viewed as restricted living space and would be subject to the state’s regulatory authority.
The social housing quota should not be confused with that which is already common in Berlin cooperative building land development. Accordingly, investors in new buildings are obliged to offer 30 percent of the living space created at a rent-controlled rate. The builders receive funding from the state for this. Rent control expires after 30 years; the apartments can then be offered again at market prices.
The current regulation offers many loopholes and is easy for investors to circumvent. That’s why almost only state-owned companies are building new social housing. Of the 5,175 social housing units approved in 2025, around 80 percent were state-owned. In addition, significantly more apartments fall out of social security every year than are newly built.
Leverage for affordable housing
“The quota would be a very big lever,” says Niklas Schenker, rental policy spokesman for the Left. According to his calculations, 17,000 apartments could be rented out affordably every year – that’s 7,000 more than have been built since 2014 with the introduction of cooperative building land development.
Like the Greens, the Left is calling for its own version of the social housing quota. The proposals only differ in small details, such as when a landlord is considered “big”. The two factions also demand that the share increases with the company’s total number of apartments.
The chances for the quota are good with a left-wing government majority after the election in September. But maybe it will work before then? “We would be happy if our coalition partner would join in,” says Sevim Aydin, housing policy spokeswoman for the SPD, cautiously optimistic. But Dirk Stettner, parliamentary group leader of the CDU, did not want to comment on the proposal when asked by taz.
Is there still a need for the corporatization of large real estate groups? “The Berlin rental market is very complex. There is no single solution,” says Wibke Werner, managing director of the Berlin Tenants’ Association. Both socialization and quotas are two effective instruments, although a quota can be implemented much more quickly. “It is good to go the route of quotas until issues of socialization are clarified.”