Arthur
Reimagining Wellington: What can we learn from Berlin’s nationalisation of housing?
Stuff. Ethan Te Ora Dec 04 2021
The first bad hint I spotted in the above article was the popular socialist weasel term ‘reimagining.’ It sounds nice and fluffy but it is really a euphemism for a communist agenda: in this case, theft. The theft bit is blatant in the other word commies love so much, ‘nationalisation’.
Apparently, there is a ‘revolutionary’ (ah, commies love revolutions) move in Berlin to “forcibly acquire properties from Berlin’s mega landlords.”
Wellington housing advocates take notice. And while Wellington’s housing crisis is not identical, large landlords in the capital appear to be bigger than previously thought.
Ohmigod. Golly gosh. Sneaky landlords are becoming bigger and, well, just plain Mega. Also, note our so-called crisis is not the same but let the lefty activism roll on anyway as if it is. If you read the Stuff article you’ll find it oscillates between rental nationalisation being good for New Zealand to New Zealand not being the same as Germany. It tends to be horribly indecisive in its conclusions and is a strange piece of writing.
If masochistic you can read it here.
Apparently, a housing ‘activist’, cue eye rolls, called Katya Graf in Berlin is up in arms.
Graf is a member of Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co, an anti-gentrification tenants’ rights organisation, which has led the charge to expropriate Berlin’s mega landlords. A referendum passed in September – with 56 per cent of the vote – but is not legally binding and faces substantial roadblocks, most crucially, a reluctant Berlin Senate.
It could see properties seized from large-scale landlords who own more than 3000 of them. An estimated 226,000 apartments would be repurposed and turned into affordable housing, owned in perpetuity by the people of the city.
This brings us to our own grubby activists in Wellington and New Zealand in general.
Renters United might be the Wellington equivalent of Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co, a New Zealand group that advocates for renter’s rights and radical housing reform. Spokesperson Ashok Jacob said Berlin was dealing with a “specific set of circumstances”: namely, a small number of mega landlords.
“We don’t really have that problem here,” Jacob said. “The problem we have is there are so many landlords that can’t afford to be landlords – people who bought an investment property in the 1980s by over-leveraging their existing property.”
Expropriation was an “elegant – if drastic – remedy to a housing shortage” but the market in Wellington was much more fragmented, Jacob said.
Ok, so far in this word soup we do not really compare in Wellington with Berlin. But slowly it is all pulled around.
The narrative that mum and dad investors own our housing stock has been pervasive, but data released this week suggests over 22,100 homes are owned by an elite class of large investors, each owning more than 20 apiece.
Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen said while the numbers weren’t on the same scale as Berlin, they did challenge the common narrative about small investors.
Of course, no commie narrative is complete without a secretive enemy of the people that needs rooting out and stripping of everything they have.
In Wellington, for instance, an enigmatic landlord owns or co-owns at least 79 properties, equivalent to roughly a quarter of Owhiro Bay, or 4 per cent of Wellington Central.
Mega villain landlords are hiding in the shadows. To arms, comrades!
The article wavers back again with,
Even so, the numbers were not quite comparable to Berlin where the prospective sale of one mega landlord to another could see 150,000 rentals owned by a single company. If the sale went ahead, 7 per cent of Berliners would rent from a single landlord.
However, Ashok Jacob eventually shows his tried and true red credentials.
Jacob would love to see “terrible landlords” stripped of their property portfolios, but no political party was likely to back such a policy. “It would be more a catharsis than a great solution, anyway,” he said.
Ah, “terrible landlords stripped of their property”. The stuff of red night time sexual fantasies and dreams of the damp kind in dank socialist basements. Nationalise them into poverty, comrades! Stalin and Mao would be proud.
The article fades out to a damp squib with,
The Berlin model could, however, provide inspiration in other ways: a renewed focus on public housing, and the impetus to ask important questions.
However, a couple of things are clear. Socialism, possibly of the national kind, is alive and well in some form in Germany although it is by no means clear if this nonsense will take place in Berlin as it could be political suicide for Berlin politicians.
The grotty little ghouls of socialism are paying attention here in Wellington and are beating the nationalisation of rental property drums. Of course, after that will come other private property.