Berlin rent increases Left Party Ines Schwerdtner, Digi Mart USA News (Berlin, Germany): Weeks after the Left Party won the Berlin election, party chair Ines Schwerdtner (37) surprised observers with a assessment of the city’s housing market. In the 3sat program “Bosetti Late Night,” she said rents would keep rising even after a possible wave of expropriations, estimating increases of about two percent per year.
Asked by host Sarah Bosetti (42) whether she did not want to lower rents at all, Schwerdtner pointed to the cost of maintaining properties: “Of course we have to keep the apartments in good repair. If we could lower them, we would do it immediately.
I just don’t want to tell people nonsense.” When pressed again, she said, “I cannot promise any individual tenant that rents will fall.”
Post-election research by Infratest Dimap found that affordable housing, together with social security, was the decisive issue for voters, and nearly half a million Left Party voters in Berlin may feel misled. In August, Schwerdtner said on the Stern podcast that housing would have to be removed from market logic to lower rents long term or keep them stable.
On Bosetti’s show she denied having promised rent reductions, saying, “I never said that.”
Other party statements may also now need reassessment. Housing spokesperson Niklas Schenker (33) cited a study by the party-affiliated Rosa Luxemburg Foundation suggesting rents in expropriated apartments could fall by an average of 16 percent.
The Berlin Left’s topic page also says saved dividends could be used for “rent cuts or better maintenance.” In May 2025, then co-chair Jan van Aken (65) issued a press release titled “Expropriate Vonovia and lower rents!”
Criticism also came from the Christian Social Union (CSU). General Secretary Martin Huber (48) told BILD: “The Left’s wild expropriation plans won’t work: voters are being deceived, rents will rise and not a single new apartment will be built.” He called it “socialist adventure policy from a bygone era” and said the plans “must be stopped immediately.”
