Rich vs Poor City Dwellers

 
 
 

Vocabulary

smack	desirable	smack-dab
major	location	commercial (2)
estate	figure (3)	estate agent
luxury	renovate	two-thirds
invest	range (2)	penthouse
unique	wallpaper	square meter
scare	floor (3)	all kinds of
site (2)	disappear	prospective
broker	amenity	an eye to the future
favor	available	to drive out
face (2)	extensive	displacement
trendy	constitute	up-and-coming
end up	carry out	exploitation
tenant	damn (2)	renovation
vacant	solid (3)	tailored (2)
burst	property	property bubble
scene	parquet	affordable
not yet	faraway	compared to
wage	average	in other words
set (2)	long-term	homogeneous
off to	sense (3)	in the sense that
exact	snap up	consultant
fitting	paneling	bubble (2)
sure	it’s up to	square (3)
meet	position	choose/chose/chosen
realize	vision (2)	meet my needs
needs	area (2)	more or less
overall	basement	dream (2)
put off	surprise	drive out (2)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Smack-dab in the center of Berlin — a most desirable location.

Malia wants to buy an apartment near the Brandenburg Gate. It’s the last major building site in this area. Estate agent, Nikolaus Ziegert is here to advise clients.

This is to become the site of luxury apartments. Two-thirds of them have already been sold.

Nikolaus Ziegert, Realtor: “The fact that there’s no building standing here yet is putting off neither our Berlin nor our international clients, who are preparing to invest in this unique location.

Prices range between four-and-a-half and ten-and-a-half thousand euros (€4,500 to €10,500).”

That’s per square meter.

For a penthouse on the top floor, you’re looking at about €2.3 million. Figures like that scare a lot of people — not so for Maria Jansen. She’s dying to live here with her husband, a management consultant. Her prospective neighbors are fashion designers and business people.

Maria Jansen, Potential Buyer: “Here you’ve got political Berlin and all kinds of cultural amenities within walking distance. And thinking with an eye to the future, it’s a solid investment.

Once the house is completed, I’m sure there won’t be any more flats available.”

 

 

But not everyone is in favor of this development: these residents are afraid of being driven out of downtown areas like Wittenburg, Mitte or Neukolln.
One of them is Tom Haarbrucker.

Tom Haarbrucker, Tenant in Berlin’s Neukolln District: “We want to live in the center of town just like everyone else. And that’s what we’re fighting for — we’re fighting against displacement; against displacement and the commercial exploitation of people living in their own homes.”

Neukolln is one of Berlin’s trendiest, up-and-coming districts. Flats here are still affordable for students and young families.

Thirty-nine-year-old Tom Haarbrucker has been living here for four years. But now the building has been sold. It’s unclear whether the new owner will move in or carry out expensive renovations.

Tom Haarbrucker, Tenant: “Yeah, I get scared. I get scared that in the next few months I might end up in the streets. It’s damn hard to find a new apartment these days.”

But homebuyers in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf District don’t face these kinds of problems. This is a quiet area, not a trendy one.

Florian Torno wants to buy a one-hundred-fifty (150) square meter apartment, the last vacant one in the building. Nikolaus Ziegert, the broker, arrives on the scene.

In the past few months, the price has risen three times. The apartment costs just under five-thousand euroes (€5,000) per square meter.

But is this a property bubble soon to burst?

Nikolaus Ziegert, Realtor: “This doesn’t really constitute a bubble, because overall prices are still lower when compared to other German cities like Munich or Hamburg, as well as internationally. Berlin has not yet reached the levels of other capital cities.”

In other words, prices are set to rise even further, despite the fact that wages here are lower than elsewhere.

 

 

Tom Haarbrucker pays about five-hundred euros €500 a month for his fifty square meter apartment. That includes heating. He works as a chef and couldn’t afford an increase in rent.

In the last few years, rents in Berlin have risen by an average of more than thirty percent (30%).

Tom Haarbrucker, Tenant: “Things are becoming homogeneous in the sense that only people who can afford it are living here, and in the sense that everything else is disappearing — especially the reason people come here.”

 

 

Meanwhile in the city center, Maria Jansen is off to have a look at the exact location of the apartment still to be snapped up. She’s surprised to find that many have already been sold.

Parquet floors, shower fittings, paneling or wallpaper, it’s all up to the buyer.

It’s only the best here: they can even choose where they’d like their walls and doors positioned.

Maria Jansen, Potential Buyer: “If I’m investing this much money, I want to be sure the property meets all my needs. It’s important to me that my vision for this space can be realized. In other words, that it’s more or less tailored for my daily life — for my needs.”

 

 

For these people, the idea of a tailored apartment is a faraway dream. They’d be happy to find any affordable apartment in Berlin. A forty square meter (40 m2) room in the basement for five-hundred euros (€500)?

It’s not exactly luxury.

Potential Renter: “I’ve seen one-room flats going for six-hundred-fifty euros (€650) that were complete dimes that you’d have to renovate and all. We’ve been looking for a long time.”

And things seem to be getting worse: more and more long-term tenants in the city center are being driven out.

 

 

Questions

1. Everyone wants to live in the suburbs of Berlin, not the inner city. True or false?

2. Do clients (buyers) simply pay the seller for a property, or do they (usually) go through a middleman or agent?

3. The city of Berlin is going to build public housing (social housing) in the center of Berlin. Is this right or wrong? Are the new residents working-class individuals?

4. Have there been protests and demonstrations in Berlin? Who are protesting? Why are they demonstrating?

5. How does Tom Haarbrucker (the chef) feel? Is he relaxed or apprehensive and anxious? Why does he feel this way?

6. Describe the prices and costs of housing in the center of Berlin. What has been the trend?

7. What may happen in the future? Will Berlin remain the same, or will it change dramatically?

 

A. Do you sympathize with the current (working-class) tenants and renters, the new property buyers, both, neither, in the middle, it depends?

B. Is the housing situation in your city similar to that of Berlin (or London, Paris)? Are house prices and rent increasing, decreasing or remaining the same?

C. Have there been changes over the decades?

D. What might happen in the future?

E. What should people do?