Berlin's housing compromise targets about 150,000 homes—but spares every landlord below 10,000

Berlin's prospective Linke–Green–SPD coalition has settled on a threshold for housing socialisation: a private owner would have to hold more than 10,000 homes in the city. The 2021 referendum proposed 3,000. Linke leader Elif Eralp says the compromise would remove roughly 160,000 homes from market logic; Tagesspiegel's company-level count points closer to 150,000. The city still lacks the rent and ownership register needed to know the exact number.

Five groups are likely to be covered. Vonovia owns about 130,000 Berlin homes after absorbing Deutsche Wohnen; Adler reports 17,500; Heimstaden roughly 20,000; Covivio has said it owns more than 17,000 residential units; and the opaque DVI group may sit just above the line. Because the proposal lets owners retain the first 10,000 homes, the total transferred would be smaller than those gross portfolios. Grand City Properties, with 8,433 Berlin homes, and several roughly 4,000-home investors would fall outside the plan. So would the church-owned Hilfswerk-Siedlung, with about 4,600.

The threshold is also a legal strategy. SPD negotiators reportedly began much higher, while Linke and Greens argued that a 20,000- or 30,000-home line might effectively single out Vonovia and become harder to defend in court. At 10,000, the affected companies share a financial-market-oriented business model, supporters argue.

Compensation remains the harder arithmetic. Vonovia values its Berlin portfolio at about €23bn, or €177,000 per home. The coalition's discussed ceiling of €16bn for 150,000 homes implies roughly €107,000 each. An election mandate and a company list do not bridge that gap. The compromise turns an abstract referendum into an identifiable transfer, but financing and constitutional review will decide whether it becomes one.