SPD to Permanently Deregulate Rent Cap After Federal Election
According to the SPD’s draft election program, the party plans to make the rent cap, which has been temporarily in place, permanent after the federal election. The goal is to ensure long-term, stable, and affordable rents in the face of a tight housing market.
The SPD’s top leadership will discuss, adopt, and present the election program on February 23, 2025. The current rent cap is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the SPD was unable to extend it during its time in the traffic light coalition.
The rent cap is a “very good instrument for curbing rising rents” the SPD’s election program says. The party demands that the rent cap not be circumvented by “partially furnished and short-term housing offers.”
Index rent agreements should only be linked to the development of net cold rents, not the inflation rate. The SPD wants to prevent the misuse of apartments and vacant properties through short-term rentals. In urban areas, the party aims to reduce short-term rentals to a minimum.
The Social Democrats want to make the state a “central actor in housing policy again.” To address the acute housing shortage, the SPD plans an “investment, tax, and de-bureaucratization offensive” as well as streamlining planning and approval procedures. The party aims to stop the dramatic rise in rents in urban areas, the election program says.
In areas with a tight housing market, the SPD proposes a maximum rent increase of six percent over three years until the local market rate is reached. The party also wants to extend the rent observation period to ten years and include price-bound housing in the assessment.
For renters, the SPD demands that additional costs be “more transparent and easier to track.” The party wants to further develop and solidify building standards like the E type and to harness the potential of serial and modular construction.
Future building programs should offer reliable, fixed funding conditions for the duration of the legislative period, the SPD’s election program says.