I don't use reddit, but is there a chance you mix up Old-Housing and Old-Contract? I have a vienna subsidised Old-Contract (Passed down trough family) in a Old "Gemeindebau" and in that case the limit rent can rise much, so i have ~8,16€/m2. Which is close to your average, but the same "Gemeindabau" (Old Housing ?) has vastly higher rates (to my knowledge) if you get a new Contract (using Wiener Wohnen). PS: Going over your channel i assume you are also from Austria, but everyone i hear currently searching complains that everything available is so damn expensive.
Sorry but this is not correct. Prices are still dramatically increasing by up to 10% per year since several years, even before inflation hit Austria. 8,7 per m2 is completely wrong. The average rent in all part of Vienna is >15,- There is no rent limits in Vienna except for old buildings built 200 years ago. There are not so many of those buildings and it is also not the best place to live (well compared to apartmens in other cities they are still in very good condition). Rents are only subsidized for people with very low income. So about 90% of the people won't get the subsidy. There is another type of subsidy but it is only when buying apartments. And companies don't sign contracts with City of Vienna anymore for this subsidy to avoid stricter regulations. Those apartments have waiting lists of several years anyways.
Can you please, state some kind of comparisson to other nearby cities? Prague-Brno-Bratislava experience here and Im saying, yes Vienna is, for its size cheap housing.
I'm living atm in Vienna as a foreign student and let me tell you, the rent prices for student housing can be cheaper than the ones in my home city in Portugal. Adding to that the public transport system, the beautifull architecture of the city and everything in between this is probably the best place to live in Europe atm.
As a viennese person I always flinch if i read something link your post. Or to put it in a viennese context: That city is just supposed to be the least shitty place to life - and not something to hail ^^ (In all seriousness: i hope you enjoy your stay in Vienna. Austria could be beautiful without the people)
Housing prices in Vienna have risen strongly aswell. It may still be cheaper in European comparison, but nowhere near as affordable, as it once was. The availability of social living spaces (=owned by the city, available for rent below the average price since they omit the profit motive) has drastically reduced aswell and involves ever growing waiting lists…
@@no_name4796 ??? More streets have become pedestrianized in the city than ever before. Outside the dense city centre where there is a lot more space there is more car-centric infrastructure is built which is totally fine
Man, the old housing thing seems like such a no-brainer. I'm guessing there are policies in place to prevent companies from destroying old homes to have another loophole?
If you live in in old housing and have an open ended lease, your landlord can only terminate it if you don't pay rent or something similar, which is one of the most common reason why old housing won't get torn down and rebuild.
@@gerrymnt9250 true, but there are companies like the one that tore down the building ensemble in Äußere Mariahilfer Straße, who got a permission for development from the district, then didn't fully disclose all information / lied in front of the city to cheat their way into a permit to demolish their buildings. It was fought in court for years but to no avail. Basically, the whole street has now lost its architectural integrity.
@@frauleinbird you can’t get permission from the district. The permission you have to get from MA19. There’s ways around. You have to get a report that it’s not possible to keep the building due to technical issues. That’s a way around, true. But amendments in legal regulations are planned for 2023 to prevent things like that
Soo living in Vienna for around 4 years and having moved 2 times, i definitely think that housing system is very well developed and optimized. However, this video idealises it too much. It picks the absolute cheapest scenarios and lists the minimum waiting times in best situations, which in reality is almost impossible. These incredible deals that the narrator describes are extremely hard to find as the prices are also rising rapidly as inflation and other crises haven't skipped Austria. There is still a shortage of apartments and a lot of the cheaper ones, especially older apartments, have very questionable quirks. Apartment hunting is extremely stressful as you're getting rejected constantly by the non-commercial organisations. After months of stress from apartment searching and paperwork I was able to find a what is considered a great deal in a building of the 3rd type that is owned by the city for a little bit more than €10 per m2. That is clearly a very good price, but not the magical price mentioned in the video. Only people living for like 30 years in these apartments that have old contracts can go so low. Again, not complaining but gently critiquing the unrealistic prices shown here.
Exactly. Also, not choosing where to live can only be either a temporary solution to get back on one's feet, or a sign of giving up on the fight. I don't want to live wherever city assigns me to save $200. It is not worth it. Not having a toilet in the apartment? Having bad neighbors? Having a badly furnished apartment you are not allowed to renovate? But to each their own, an average person is obviously satisfied with that.
You first got me with your video about becoming an Austrian (at the time I was getting my Visa), then the countries who not let you go (I was one of the examples, an argentinian living in Austria), and now, next month I have to start looking for a new apartment and you came up with this video!! Google listen to everything, but you seem to be the one listening to Google 😂😂
Very similar here in Copenhagen, great job explaining it! Prices have been going higher lately but are still hanging on, since the system is resilient to drastic changes
Jeg tror du mener de almene boliger. Der er kun 20% almene boliger i KBH, hvilket er langt færre end i Wien hvor over halvdelen bor til husleje som ikke må stige. Der er også langt længere kø her i KBH, de fleste kommer nok til at vente 7+år for en lejlighed
as a citizen of vienna - this is only partly true. i know more than enough who pay 14€/meter and upwards. 1k for a 60m flat is nothing too crazy.... yes, there is cheap public housing - which isnt crazy easy to qualify for
1k for 60m is high, but not that crazy. In my country of poland, 60m^2 are going for 4k PLN which is sightly below 1k euros. This is a median monthly salary.
Paying 1K for 60m2 is crazy. I'm about to move into a public housing which doesn't require anything special to apply 72m2 for 850 a month plus a garden, private parking space and basement
@@GoodOlTazzy i guess crazy is defined where you are at and also on in which part of the city you are at. when i was living in china (shanghai, near peoples square) we payed 2.5k€ for roughly 110m² - back in 2013..... luckily we were four.....
Interesting to compare different countries. In the province of Quebec, in Canada, we have a similar situation of being cheaper than the rest of the country, but for different reasons. Upfront deposits are illegal and rent is controlled by limiting the amount it can raise every year. If the landlord raises your rent above certain threshold, you can refuse and contest it to a government agency (who usually favour renters). Even if you sign a lease, you can later on contest the price if you learn that it's been raised higher than the yearly maximum. It's also virtually impossible to legally evict a tenant outside of a few specific reasons (major renovations, moving in specific family members, not paying rent) with even exceptions to that that protect certain renters (like old people). Any evictions also have a deadline (3 months before end of lease at the latest) so if the owner doesn't evict in time, they have to continue the lease for at least another year. It won't stop owners from trying illegal things anyways, but it shouldn't happen in theory. It sometimes leaves some landlords in weird situations (if the renter stops paying rent 2 months before the lease expires, they can stay for 14 more months before being evicted, if the renters trash the place, etc.), but I think it's beneficial considering who has the most power in the landlord-renter relationship, since these situations happen rarely.
How long have these policies been in place? Everything about it screams a gradual lowering of housing supply in the long run. Or building of units exempt from such strict controls.
@@MA-go7ee These policies have been here since I can remember but yes Montréal experiences increase rent and housing cost because of housing shortage like the rest of Canada. Those policies do not affect the market and does not lower housing supply, the high demand does. Newly built units can charge rent as high as they want and this is a factor of increase in rent prices.
I'm a student in Amsterdam and this makes me very jealous. With what I currently spend on my 23sqm studio in Amsterdam, I could afford a 100sqm appartment in Vienna...
A horrible 100 sqm apartment. I have friends living in Netherlands, dumps like Vieneese would be illegal to rent in Netherlands. On top of that, the income is 1/3 for any decent paying job. As an engineer you can maybe earn 2000eur nett in Vienna, and that is if you are lucky. You woud not earn that little in Netherlands, even as an intern.
@@Commentator541 the average salaries in Netherlands also have a cap and high % of tax, its not much more that you would receive in the Netherlands netto/ after tax while living costs are way higher.
I've never been to Vienna, but the description sounds nice at first glance-affordable housing, astonishing architecture, public transport and services, etc. When I opened the tax calculator, life started to look not so bright. Compared to Cyprus (with substantial tax deductions for newcomers), my imaginary net income in Vienna is slightly lower than mine after paying my rent, monthly bills, and private school for one child in Cyprus. As usual, if you save in one place, you spend more in the other.
For those who pay too much for their Altbau: Go to your Schlichtungsstelle, they will settle this with you.!! Turns out I was paying 200 € too much for my place and those guys really helped me out a lot. Most landlord cannot/do not want to afford a court case that they are gonna loose anyway. So, it is best to just go to one of the official city departments. They know you are in the right and they will help you get your money back. You can also go to a third party lawyer firm such as "Mietfuchs" but they have super sketchy and ask for at leat 60% of the money that you'll get back.
You can join the "Mietervereinigung" (a renter's union) and though one pays maybe €200 to join it, I got about €5000 back in rent that was charged too high. I only did that after getting a rental contract that is unlimited, meaning my rent is now higher, but still it was worth it.
@@eleidalfrom what I've heard do NOT join that. It you read the reviews of actual people who've had issues it's clear that it doesn't always work out at all. People lost their apartments due to their incompetence. I was about to get help from them but they never called me back, thank God I read the reviews and such afterwards and decided to just get a regular lawyer.
I'm curious where you get your numbers from. Because, if you look at any platform to find a place to rent in Vienna, you realistically end up at prices around 15€ per square meter. Associated housing is not that much cheaper anymore and even public housing is on the rise.
The numbers is what people already pay on average, not for new contracts. And I think the prices for public houses and association housing are really as said in the video, but they don't advertise, for public housing you have to register with Wiener Wohnen and for association housing you also have to register to get an offer, like he said in the video
Great video on this topic Tapakapa. As soemone who currently lives in the US, the very thought of a city taking initiative like this to support people in such a way would be unthinkable. Not because they don't say "oh we want to help".. they simply refuse to act. In Budapest the situation is similar to Vienna, but you guys have it a lot better :)
I also wonder how much has to do with the fact that Vienna is one of the few major European cities that has shrunk considerably over the past 100 years - from a population of 2.2 million in 1916 to 1.6 million after WWII, and still only 1.9 million today. To go from a city that had the infrastructure and building stock of an imperial city, to one with the population of a midsize capital of a relatively small country, has got to leave a fair bit of slack in terms of supply.
In regards to housing it was actually a blessing in disguise, since the City predicted way more people to live here in the early 20th century than actually were. That lead to more housing infrastructure per capita, so all the people in apartments without water and washrooms were able to get improved infrastructure etc. In the 80s the City overhauled it again with their "Sanfte Stadterneuerung", during which the living standards for people improved even more.
Well I wouldn't say midsized city for a small country... It's still enormous for a country of 8 million people it's like a quarter of the population in one city which is a lot
back in the day it was different. Many, many people did not have an apartment but only a place to sleep. Vienna was notorious for people renting out places on benches to sleep on in a sitting position next to 10 others. There also were people living in caves at the Wienerberg and in Lainz. Actually this was why the city up until to this day takes public housing so seriously.
Some cities have still managed to screw it up in similar circumstances though. The urban core of Glasgow has about 1/2 as much people as it did in 1900 (+ there's still plenty of housing within a 30-min train ride), but the city still manages to have a very acute housing crisis at the moment. Rent as such is relatively cheap in Glasgow (even though is going up astronomically as we speak), but flat hunting there is an absolute nightmare!
@@GavinPetty Nah, they're just one of those annoying people who think it's cool to pretend the biggest city in their country is the worst place in the world. Plenty of those in Austria as well.
Everything I found online about rents in Vienna are >4-500$ and even those seem to be houses without furniture, while in Hungary you can find a modern apartment for 300$ in a semi central place. Everything I found in Vienna for 400$ were 20m^2 places without furniture. Also for a tourist from Romania, Vienna seems quite expensive.. I never lived in either cities, but I was searching for houses in Budapest and the price you showed kinda matches the reality, but in case of Vienna, not at all.
GDP/capita(2021, US$): Romania=14795, Hungary=18732, Austria=53332; so of course Vienna seems really expensive from your perspective, but for Austrians it is not; Swiss tourists would probably say it's super cheap
When your city is an imperial capitol that is suddenly sans empire, resulting in a population lower today than a hundred years ago, you're kind of playing on easy mode when it comes to housing policy.
I have a pension of $3750 a month and am planning on traveling the world full time. My daily budget for housing is $30 a day. Surprisingly Vienna is a city that I can stay in long term if I want. I’ve already been to 22 countries and Vienna might be my favorite city ever. The public transportation, the site seeing, the people watching, everything about it is just awesome.
I love these videos. I had the privilege of visiting Vienna for the first time a month ago... well worth a visit. These videos prepared me for the subways🙂
I find it insane how much funnier the video gets when I watch it in Austrian. How much your native language or a particular dialect/accent can change the mood.
It is a vicious circle when Rent is influenced by the value of the land, value of the land is influenced by demand for housing, and housing construction is influenced to higher rent
5:02 that's why you should join the renter's union (Mietervereinigung). They offer legal assistance to members. Of course you probably still don't get your contract extended if you have a fixed-term contract, but you can just rent another old apartment then and repeat the same process if necessary. Actually some people do it like that. If you have a low income it's for sure worth all the hassle.
My mom is living in vienna for about 11 years and she told me the prices are quite expensives and she's rather looking at buying apartments in Romania since it's cheaper rather than vienna.
And here I am living in a small village in the countryside 45 min away from vienna - because the rents there are at least twice as high for less room (also I do prefer the quiet compared to a big city) I don't know anyone who lives in Vienna and thinks of the rent as "cheap" (ok compared to cities like Hamburg or Munich maybe they are but those cities do have crazy prices)
I lived in Vienna and rents are only cheap for Viennese who have either a Gemeindewohnung (public housing) or a generations old rent contract. If you move to Vienna from the other regions of Austria or from abroad, you won't get one of these ever. Its a complicated system that favors Viennese locals, because they are also the voters on which the socialist party in the City Hall depends. On the free market rents are not cheap. The last 100 years - since the Emperor was ousted, the mayor of Vienna was always from the same social party (unly interrupted by the Nazi years). The better ties you have to this party, the higher the chances you get one of these cheap flats.
One thing that I see in places that might help the land issue is a public-private partnership. In exchange for giving housing developers tax credits on buying land/building costs, the city gets to claim a percentage of units in a building that must be association housing (since "old" housing is locked, and public housing is basically locked). It would allow the city to build more public housing because it wouldn't be competing for land. This would be _in addition to_ (not instead of) full "association housing" buildings, and apply to most new "market housing". Would that be something Vienna as a culture could look at and study to see if it would work?
It's really not. If you were to add all the health insurance stuff and all the other crap which in the US is not included.. you have to like 2x or 3x the number I reckon.
As a labor & public economist this was super interesting. Housing is such a fundamental necessity and in everywhere I have lived has felt like the landlords are treat me as a commodity and my life is but coin in their coffer. Also, I am sorry but I can't read your citations very easily (I only speak English); what is the name of the policy passed in 1981 in Vienna that set the old/new housing? I want to look into it to see if I can find data & do research.
Affordable housing is a great social asset. We need a lot more of it. I believe the market, with appropriate regulation, can work wonders. Simply allow for more mixed-use high-density housing, less zoning restrictions on height, but strict requirements for spaces between buildings. The old housing is energy inefficient, as its thick walls take a lot or energy to heat or cool. It also usually lacks elevators, making it harder to use by older people (and European population is growing older). It is far better than getting into debt due to rent, or being homeless, but it can be much improved if replaced with higher new buildings.
I live in the USA and the pandemic put rentals through the roof. They've not come down, and it's clear this is the new norm. Two primary reasons: single family home construction slowed to a trickle during the pandemic (as you might expect), and tradional renters (unmarried peoples, students, and young couples without children) stopped wanting roomates (which is what we call flatmates), who could potentially get them sick should another pandemic break out. Between the two, this dumped millions of additional Americans into the renting market whom would have otherwise bought a home or co-habitated. And as we all know, when demand outpaces supply, price increases. Bare in mind, this is America, the notion of government mandated rent control is literally a foreign concept whose existence is relegated to a sparse set of highly localized laws. And except for the very poor, there is no such thing as a public housing scheme. That being said, overall, we're still #1 (I was going to write 'the number one place to live' but if I go listing every specific thing at which we're number one, I'll be here anywhere from several days to several years 😉).
It's this video a joke? A 35-40mq apartment goes from 700 to 850€! Only the social buildings are cheap, but if you're a youngster just moved to the city you CAN'T access to the social buildings! Plus the apartments in old buildings are a total mess! Electric heating, no curtains ecc ecc. Please don't believe this video! Source: I moved in Vienna 2 years ago
Vienna used to have a horrid poverty issue, especially into the 1920-30's and 40's albeit both decades for a different reason. I'm glad they take care of their people, i just can't stand the humidity from the danube in summer. The general lack of Air condtioning made it rough!
Living in Ireland where our entire country doesn't even have any available private apartments, I kid you not, we genuinely have next to no private apartments and the few that we do have are either operated illegally for massive profit and/or are mouldy, damp, overpriced hovels.
Houses are expensive because: - concentration of jobs and oportunities in a few urban centers, the death of the smaller towns and the rural exodus - government intervention in the market, fiscal instability and low trust by the landlords in the goverment, reducing the amount of houses in the market, wich reduces competition. - historically low interest rates wich lead to more people owning houses instead of renting them. - public transportation that is foucosed on the city centers and not getting people in the suburbs to a suburbian train station and from there to the metro and from there to their jobs, so, people have to live close to the city to be able to work because of the first point. - concentration of jobs in a small area of the city, wich makes everybody want to live as close to it as possible - terrible implementation of public housing policies, wich lead to governments dumping the responsability of social security in the private housing market by goverment intervention stated in point 2. - regulations and burocracy limiting construction, wich costs money for every hour construction workers are not building, resulting in more construction of high value-added housing, because low value-added housing wont be profitable The perfect example of all of this is Lisbon. The only economically dynamic urban center in it's coutry, heavily regulated construction, low execution of public housing programs due to government ineficiency, leading to the dumping of social responsabilities in the private sector, demonization of profits and antagonism of landlords by public policies, causing the rental market to grow below demand. Insufficient and unreliable public transport and the reduction of the residential potential of the south bank of the Tagus and the north-west Lisbon Metro area, leading to the need for people to live in the city itself, where most of the well-paid jobs are concentrated. High levels of home buying, promoted and financed by successive governments between the 1980s and 2000s, the Constant risk of rent fixation, with reduces trust in the market, regulations making eviction really hard, wich also reduces the trust in tenants and willingness of landlords to put their extra houses in the renting market, or requiring concrete proof of stable income, which makes renting more difficult for less well-off families or with less stable jobs/fluctuating incomes. And many times, landlords try to rent their houses for short periods of time to foreigners, which is an activity with much less risk and regulation than renting to Portuguese people. I know all this because I have already tried to rent my house in a Portuguese town in the interior. Regulation, taxes and risks in general meant that an income of €250 (a reasonable estimated value for the location) would be a loss after 1 year. So I ended up selling the house for the net worth of 30 years of rent payments before taxes and risk assumptions.
Sorry but this is not correct. Prices are still dramatically increasing by up to 10% per year since several years, even before inflation hit Austria. 8,7 per m2 is completely wrong. The average rent in all part of Vienna is >15,- There is no rent limits in Vienna except for old buildings built 200 years ago. There are not so many of those buildings and it is also not the best place to live (well compared to apartmens in other cities they are still in very good condition). Rents are only subsidized for people with very low income. So about 90% of the people won't get the subsidy. There is another type of subsidy but it is only when buying apartments. And companies don't sign contracts with City of Vienna anymore for this subsidy to avoid stricter regulations. Those apartments have waiting lists of several years anyways.
i guess this average includes old unlimited contracts, otherwise the figure 8.7/m^2 can't be right. but it's impossible for anyone not already having such a contract to obtain one so calculating them in is kinda misleading
Amsterdam student and pay around 30 Euro per m2 and 55% of my income goes to rent, exclusing energy and water. Housing prices rise faster than wages and interest rates are lower than inflation, so saving for a house is near impossible.
If you're not a student but you're still spending more than 1/3 of your disposable income on housing (viz. rent or mortgage payments), then you're losing out. In the Nordic countries, there are mechanisms in place to try to prevent that from happening. But in a city like Copenhagen, there's such a high demand for apartments that a black market has emerged that somewhat off-sets what the government is trying to achieve, which is reasonably and realistically affordable housing.
Basically the same or better without the wait times could be achieved by keeping interest rates above a minimum and not allowing foreign investors to buy homes (vs requiring you to live in a place for whatever many years, so onerous and inflexible). US homes were super affordable before the 1980s or so, and I claim it was because interest rates were high, and very few foreign investors that had money existed compared to the size of the us population.
This reminds me. I want to go back to visit Vienna again. It's so nice there. Edit: If I was a billionaire I would literally make it my sole job/purpose to take shitty landlords to court for charging too much rent against the law. That's so ludicrously messed up.
Problem is, especially for small landlords who bought in the 80th or 90ths(when most old Houses Vienna werr in a dire state )or just inheritated the place, a maximum price of ~ 6 Euros per m² is not enough to rennovate or upkeep the houses with the current "bloated" prices (more than 1000 Euro per m² for a modernisation)The Richterwert system was an improvment for landlords and renters alike (more mobilisation, clearer outlines in the law)but at the end it just leads to a dominance of resellers on the market. with the start of the low interest era and the rising housing demand, most of the old owners just sold to redevelopers, who split the houses and tend to resell them as condos. Same situation in Graz and Linz. Salzburg and Innsbruck are dominated by Post war buildings in the housing sector. Wiener Wohnen also lacks money to upkeep its vast housing stock(suffering the same fate as small owner, not generating enough for necessary repairs or proper expansion). With interest rates rising and Viennas surge of growth slowing a little bit down, maybe things will change for the better, especially paired with new more adept laws.
Considering a city is ultimately responsible for picking up the tab for social breakdowns stemming from the housing sector, is a 25% stake an appropriate fiscal and social policy?
In Vienna you have Sozialbau and Gemeindebau where you can get cheap flats. Its the rest of the social system left. But its impossible to get one in the center. If you want to rend a flat as a person not based in vienna since at least 5 years its as expensive as any othe rmajor european city.
17:45 "primarily determined by wealth" do you mean only wealth (money/assets you already have), or income (money you have coming in), or both? For economic analyses, differentiating between wealth and income can be important. Enough wealth can generate income, and income can be saved to become wealth. But still, they're not the same thing. One with wealth and no income might have diminishing wealth (unless interest on the wealth exceeds expenses). And no substantial wealth can lead to financial instability.
In regards to the old housing: the buidling structure is most often terrible The rooms are 4m high and they have no good isolated + thin walls. A modern building would have only ~1/3rd of the heating expenditure in comparison. Even if the rent is much lower the heating costs are much higher and you will hear everything throug the thin walls.
I think the background of thebold housing law is as follows: - before 1981, all rents were regulated. - In 1981 Austria was governed by the Socialist party (SPÖ) with absolute majority. Like every bourgeois party at that time, they wanted to make neo-liberal reforms. But they still wanted to appear socialist, as this was more popular. - So they said, we allow free market to encourage investments ("coincidentally" at the same time the program for building public housing in Vienna, which was also governed by SPÖ with absolute majority, was slowly cut back), but still cap rents for old buildings, but they set a fixed date so that on the long term, it would transition to more free market and less caps, as there woukd be more new and less old buildings.
In New York a 50 square meter apartment is $35 per square meter! Prices are so high most people can't afford to move without subsidies. The situation shows no sign of improvement and may get worse in the future. An interesting correlation I observed is that the cost per square meter should be equal to the minimum wage 🧐 in order for a person to spend 30% or less of their net income on rent, This can be used anywhere in the world.
Thank you for good vid. Everything is about the land and the way the city government manages stuff. Vienna ranks top 5 in different studies and rankings in the world. So they did one or two things right. One of the keys to "affordable" houses is to not sell land to hedge funds, sheikhs or oligharchs. But give away about 20 m² of land to each citizen living in city for at least two years. In return the city can and should own 20% of the property, because they provided the land at no cost. Associations, owned by the citizens and with democratic voting mechanisms can and should be installed, just to organize stuff properly. The ownership of the apartment is key to building some wealth and prepare for retirement. Rents are like an additional income tax. The government should, besides the land, provide cheap interest only mortages (~0,2% per month) for about 50% of the construction costs. And third be very proactive in providing land for building and provide infrastructure, like railroads and public transport. Anyhow, Vienna already does an excellent job here, and other city governments should learn a thing or two from Vienna. A good starting point for city planners is your vid, ty.
From what I do know, I am a fan of the Singapore style of making all housing public housing, and being unable to purchase a home, rather instead you get a 99 year lease.
As someone living in Vienna and searching for a payable apartment since over 3 years, I really want to know where do you got for infos from, cause nowadays you pay over 20€/qm
Hey, so ok, this has been done around 6months ago, but even back then, the average price per m2 was never EUR 8,7 - where do you get these figures from? We are way up between 15 and 28!!
Housing costs have truly become reticules. I really don't understand wey this isn't farther up on governments priority lists. even on the countryside it is getting reticules.
@@RyanTosh yes this always was so wieder to me. I mean most developed countries subsidize basic food products but public hauling was somehow forgotten in the 21 century.
@@RyanTosh best goverments can do is take away your freedom of speech and right to defend yourself and send your tax money to Ukraine. The government helping people, HA
@@hellishcyberdemon7112 Wtf are you talking about m8. Pretty much every western democracy keeps freedom of speech basically intact, with the exception of speech that causes direct and severe harm. Taking away your right to defend yourself using [weapon] is perfectly justified when [weapon] is responsible for hundreds of times more deaths than it prevents. And sending a teensy tiny perfectage of your nation's tax income to support a democracy being invaded by an imperialist foreign power is something to be proud of, and something which doesn't harm you in the slightest.
nah, it's getting more and more expensive. might be cheaper compared to other european countries but for the past 5 years it's gotten quite a bit more on the rent. and when your salary cannot allow you to buy your own apartment, cannot say that Austria is cheap anymore.
What you, however, leave out of the equation is the *quality* of these cheap apartments. I’ve been living in Vienna for 8 years now and never ever have I seen an apartment in an old house that I would wish to spend more than one night in, let alone living there for years. So, if you want to live somewhere that actually feels like living in the center of civilized Europe, the rents suddenly become 20-25€ per square meter (I’m paying 21€/m right now). Bonus point: the costs of heating and electricity, that you also didn’t mention, are by far higher in the old housing (because of the high ceilings and energy efficiency of old buildings), which also makes really lining there not as extremely cheap and nice as you are trying to portrait it.
interesting, i would pick old buildings over new ones every single time. the fact i got 3.9m high ceilings instead of the claustrophobic 2.4m in new buildings is probably the most important factor.
I love the system here in Vienna however I wish they would rewrite this law to make it a certain age rather than a certain year for defin8ng old housing 1981 was 36 years after 1945 so maybe 36 years would be a good value. or maybe 40 years.
If Vienna wants to retain it´s cultural heritage, it has to do something about the Houses built before 1945. Neither imperial , nor socialist 1920s nostalgia will cover the fact that Vienna is not able to keep up with demand, which makes the city "bleed" on the long term. These houses are the city´s treasure and are either demolished due to the strong regulations or converted into luxury appartments not available for rent. Even the non profit "Wiener Wohnen" can´t upkeep most of it´s pre war houses on a good standard, so how are privates expected to perform that way? Also the SPÖ really does break the boundaries of city and party marketing.
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Discuss the video on Reddit!
www.reddit.com/r/tapakapa/comments/yylrme/why_rents_in_vienna_are_so_damn_cheap/
Hi tapa
I don't use reddit, but is there a chance you mix up Old-Housing and Old-Contract?
I have a vienna subsidised Old-Contract (Passed down trough family) in a Old "Gemeindebau" and in that case the limit rent can rise much, so i have ~8,16€/m2.
Which is close to your average, but the same "Gemeindabau" (Old Housing ?) has vastly higher rates (to my knowledge) if you get a new Contract (using Wiener Wohnen).
PS: Going over your channel i assume you are also from Austria, but everyone i hear currently searching complains that everything available is so damn expensive.
no, i dont think i will
Pls do a video on Singapore Public Housing
Sorry but this is not correct.
Prices are still dramatically increasing by up to 10% per year since several years, even before inflation hit Austria.
8,7 per m2 is completely wrong. The average rent in all part of Vienna is >15,-
There is no rent limits in Vienna except for old buildings built 200 years ago. There are not so many of those buildings and it is also not the best place to live (well compared to apartmens in other cities they are still in very good condition).
Rents are only subsidized for people with very low income. So about 90% of the people won't get the subsidy.
There is another type of subsidy but it is only when buying apartments. And companies don't sign contracts with City of Vienna anymore for this subsidy to avoid stricter regulations. Those apartments have waiting lists of several years anyways.
this austrian propaganda is getting real convincing
Good ...
@Computment We are still mad about you not killing Hitler when he was a baby
Can you please, state some kind of comparisson to other nearby cities? Prague-Brno-Bratislava experience here and Im saying, yes Vienna is, for its size cheap housing.
@Computment The ÖVP saying something positive about Vienna?
@Faris Akhal the best propaganda is true ;)
I'm living atm in Vienna as a foreign student and let me tell you, the rent prices for student housing can be cheaper than the ones in my home city in Portugal. Adding to that the public transport system, the beautifull architecture of the city and everything in between this is probably the best place to live in Europe atm.
The public transport is absolutely top notch
As a viennese person I always flinch if i read something link your post. Or to put it in a viennese context: That city is just supposed to be the least shitty place to life - and not something to hail ^^ (In all seriousness: i hope you enjoy your stay in Vienna. Austria could be beautiful without the people)
I hate public transportation. Getting a car here is also impossible
@@nikoleigraham8747 ... why do you hate it?
@@nikoleigraham8747 well, parking HERE is impossible
Housing prices in Vienna have risen strongly aswell. It may still be cheaper in European comparison, but nowhere near as affordable, as it once was. The availability of social living spaces (=owned by the city, available for rent below the average price since they omit the profit motive) has drastically reduced aswell and involves ever growing waiting lists…
Meanwhile we keep building more and more car only street, enormous parking lots for cars and we pretend them to be free...
@@no_name4796 nooo Vienna don't become americanized
Neoliberalism is slowly creeping into the spö over the last decades
@@hex2637 In the social democratic movement at large since Blair did it first
@@no_name4796 ??? More streets have become pedestrianized in the city than ever before. Outside the dense city centre where there is a lot more space there is more car-centric infrastructure is built which is totally fine
Man, the old housing thing seems like such a no-brainer. I'm guessing there are policies in place to prevent companies from destroying old homes to have another loophole?
Yup. Still happens way too often, but it's not easy.
If you live in in old housing and have an open ended lease, your landlord can only terminate it if you don't pay rent or something similar, which is one of the most common reason why old housing won't get torn down and rebuild.
You have to get a permit by local authorities that the demolition of the house isn’t impacting the cityscape. Which you can get but it’s not that easy
@@gerrymnt9250 true, but there are companies like the one that tore down the building ensemble in Äußere Mariahilfer Straße, who got a permission for development from the district, then didn't fully disclose all information / lied in front of the city to cheat their way into a permit to demolish their buildings. It was fought in court for years but to no avail. Basically, the whole street has now lost its architectural integrity.
@@frauleinbird you can’t get permission from the district. The permission you have to get from MA19. There’s ways around. You have to get a report that it’s not possible to keep the building due to technical issues. That’s a way around, true. But amendments in legal regulations are planned for 2023 to prevent things like that
Soo living in Vienna for around 4 years and having moved 2 times, i definitely think that housing system is very well developed and optimized. However, this video idealises it too much. It picks the absolute cheapest scenarios and lists the minimum waiting times in best situations, which in reality is almost impossible. These incredible deals that the narrator describes are extremely hard to find as the prices are also rising rapidly as inflation and other crises haven't skipped Austria. There is still a shortage of apartments and a lot of the cheaper ones, especially older apartments, have very questionable quirks. Apartment hunting is extremely stressful as you're getting rejected constantly by the non-commercial organisations. After months of stress from apartment searching and paperwork I was able to find a what is considered a great deal in a building of the 3rd type that is owned by the city for a little bit more than €10 per m2. That is clearly a very good price, but not the magical price mentioned in the video. Only people living for like 30 years in these apartments that have old contracts can go so low. Again, not complaining but gently critiquing the unrealistic prices shown here.
Debbie Downer :(((
@@JM-lw3nx Almost thought i wrote that
Exactly. Also, not choosing where to live can only be either a temporary solution to get back on one's feet, or a sign of giving up on the fight. I don't want to live wherever city assigns me to save $200. It is not worth it. Not having a toilet in the apartment? Having bad neighbors? Having a badly furnished apartment you are not allowed to renovate? But to each their own, an average person is obviously satisfied with that.
10€/qm is really really cheap in Vienna!
You first got me with your video about becoming an Austrian (at the time I was getting my Visa), then the countries who not let you go (I was one of the examples, an argentinian living in Austria), and now, next month I have to start looking for a new apartment and you came up with this video!! Google listen to everything, but you seem to be the one listening to Google 😂😂
Very similar here in Copenhagen, great job explaining it! Prices have been going higher lately but are still hanging on, since the system is resilient to drastic changes
Jeg tror du mener de almene boliger. Der er kun 20% almene boliger i KBH, hvilket er langt færre end i Wien hvor over halvdelen bor til husleje som ikke må stige. Der er også langt længere kø her i KBH, de fleste kommer nok til at vente 7+år for en lejlighed
as a citizen of vienna - this is only partly true. i know more than enough who pay 14€/meter and upwards. 1k for a 60m flat is nothing too crazy.... yes, there is cheap public housing - which isnt crazy easy to qualify for
1k for 60m is high, but not that crazy. In my country of poland, 60m^2 are going for 4k PLN which is sightly below 1k euros. This is a median monthly salary.
Paying 1K for 60m2 is crazy.
I'm about to move into a public housing which doesn't require anything special to apply 72m2 for 850 a month plus a garden, private parking space and basement
@@GoodOlTazzy i guess crazy is defined where you are at and also on in which part of the city you are at. when i was living in china (shanghai, near peoples square) we payed 2.5k€ for roughly 110m² - back in 2013..... luckily we were four.....
I am currently looking for a flat in Vienna. The prices are at around 1K EUR (bills included) / mth for 20-30m2, not 60! (3rd district)
@@Itadakimanthese are luxury apartments. They are way above the average even for new renters, but are also the ones most advertised.
Interesting to compare different countries. In the province of Quebec, in Canada, we have a similar situation of being cheaper than the rest of the country, but for different reasons.
Upfront deposits are illegal and rent is controlled by limiting the amount it can raise every year. If the landlord raises your rent above certain threshold, you can refuse and contest it to a government agency (who usually favour renters). Even if you sign a lease, you can later on contest the price if you learn that it's been raised higher than the yearly maximum. It's also virtually impossible to legally evict a tenant outside of a few specific reasons (major renovations, moving in specific family members, not paying rent) with even exceptions to that that protect certain renters (like old people). Any evictions also have a deadline (3 months before end of lease at the latest) so if the owner doesn't evict in time, they have to continue the lease for at least another year. It won't stop owners from trying illegal things anyways, but it shouldn't happen in theory.
It sometimes leaves some landlords in weird situations (if the renter stops paying rent 2 months before the lease expires, they can stay for 14 more months before being evicted, if the renters trash the place, etc.), but I think it's beneficial considering who has the most power in the landlord-renter relationship, since these situations happen rarely.
How long have these policies been in place? Everything about it screams a gradual lowering of housing supply in the long run. Or building of units exempt from such strict controls.
@@MA-go7ee These policies have been here since I can remember but yes Montréal experiences increase rent and housing cost because of housing shortage like the rest of Canada. Those policies do not affect the market and does not lower housing supply, the high demand does. Newly built units can charge rent as high as they want and this is a factor of increase in rent prices.
Also net wages are just low in Quebec
I'm a student in Amsterdam and this makes me very jealous. With what I currently spend on my 23sqm studio in Amsterdam, I could afford a 100sqm appartment in Vienna...
A horrible 100 sqm apartment. I have friends living in Netherlands, dumps like Vieneese would be illegal to rent in Netherlands. On top of that, the income is 1/3 for any decent paying job. As an engineer you can maybe earn 2000eur nett in Vienna, and that is if you are lucky. You woud not earn that little in Netherlands, even as an intern.
Ahh you’re still fine, I have to pay rent in Dublin ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
@@Commentator541 the average salaries in Netherlands also have a cap and high % of tax, its not much more that you would receive in the Netherlands netto/ after tax while living costs are way higher.
I've never been to Vienna, but the description sounds nice at first glance-affordable housing, astonishing architecture, public transport and services, etc.
When I opened the tax calculator, life started to look not so bright. Compared to Cyprus (with substantial tax deductions for newcomers), my imaginary net income in Vienna is slightly lower than mine after paying my rent, monthly bills, and private school for one child in Cyprus.
As usual, if you save in one place, you spend more in the other.
For those who pay too much for their Altbau: Go to your Schlichtungsstelle, they will settle this with you.!! Turns out I was paying 200 € too much for my place and those guys really helped me out a lot. Most landlord cannot/do not want to afford a court case that they are gonna loose anyway. So, it is best to just go to one of the official city departments. They know you are in the right and they will help you get your money back. You can also go to a third party lawyer firm such as "Mietfuchs" but they have super sketchy and ask for at leat 60% of the money that you'll get back.
You can join the "Mietervereinigung" (a renter's union) and though one pays maybe €200 to join it, I got about €5000 back in rent that was charged too high. I only did that after getting a rental contract that is unlimited, meaning my rent is now higher, but still it was worth it.
@@eleidalfrom what I've heard do NOT join that. It you read the reviews of actual people who've had issues it's clear that it doesn't always work out at all. People lost their apartments due to their incompetence. I was about to get help from them but they never called me back, thank God I read the reviews and such afterwards and decided to just get a regular lawyer.
I'm curious where you get your numbers from. Because, if you look at any platform to find a place to rent in Vienna, you realistically end up at prices around 15€ per square meter. Associated housing is not that much cheaper anymore and even public housing is on the rise.
The numbers is what people already pay on average, not for new contracts.
And I think the prices for public houses and association housing are really as said in the video, but they don't advertise, for public housing you have to register with Wiener Wohnen and for association housing you also have to register to get an offer, like he said in the video
didnt check the video length before clicking so i was just expecting a normal
Great video on this topic Tapakapa. As soemone who currently lives in the US, the very thought of a city taking initiative like this to support people in such a way would be unthinkable. Not because they don't say "oh we want to help".. they simply refuse to act. In Budapest the situation is similar to Vienna, but you guys have it a lot better :)
I also wonder how much has to do with the fact that Vienna is one of the few major European cities that has shrunk considerably over the past 100 years - from a population of 2.2 million in 1916 to 1.6 million after WWII, and still only 1.9 million today. To go from a city that had the infrastructure and building stock of an imperial city, to one with the population of a midsize capital of a relatively small country, has got to leave a fair bit of slack in terms of supply.
In regards to housing it was actually a blessing in disguise, since the City predicted way more people to live here in the early 20th century than actually were. That lead to more housing infrastructure per capita, so all the people in apartments without water and washrooms were able to get improved infrastructure etc. In the 80s the City overhauled it again with their "Sanfte Stadterneuerung", during which the living standards for people improved even more.
Well I wouldn't say midsized city for a small country... It's still enormous for a country of 8 million people it's like a quarter of the population in one city which is a lot
@@Andreas-pj6np Yes you're right, meant to say it's midsize in the grand scheme of European capitals. It's large for a country the size of Austria.
back in the day it was different. Many, many people did not have an apartment but only a place to sleep. Vienna was notorious for people renting out places on benches to sleep on in a sitting position next to 10 others. There also were people living in caves at the Wienerberg and in Lainz.
Actually this was why the city up until to this day takes public housing so seriously.
Some cities have still managed to screw it up in similar circumstances though. The urban core of Glasgow has about 1/2 as much people as it did in 1900 (+ there's still plenty of housing within a 30-min train ride), but the city still manages to have a very acute housing crisis at the moment. Rent as such is relatively cheap in Glasgow (even though is going up astronomically as we speak), but flat hunting there is an absolute nightmare!
Yeah, well, I'm aware of the fact that rents are rising in Vienna, too, but man I wish we had it that good here in Helsinki.
Or, just don't live in a dystopian hellhole city
@@avaraportti1873 You're thinking of American Cities, not Helsinki
@@GavinPetty Nah, they're just one of those annoying people who think it's cool to pretend the biggest city in their country is the worst place in the world. Plenty of those in Austria as well.
@@taivaankumma ah, fair
Yeah, the Finnish rent subsidy system is pretty bad because it pushes rents higher and benefits land lords more than renters.
Everything I found online about rents in Vienna are >4-500$ and even those seem to be houses without furniture, while in Hungary you can find a modern apartment for 300$ in a semi central place. Everything I found in Vienna for 400$ were 20m^2 places without furniture. Also for a tourist from Romania, Vienna seems quite expensive.. I never lived in either cities, but I was searching for houses in Budapest and the price you showed kinda matches the reality, but in case of Vienna, not at all.
GDP/capita(2021, US$): Romania=14795, Hungary=18732, Austria=53332; so of course Vienna seems really expensive from your perspective, but for Austrians it is not; Swiss tourists would probably say it's super cheap
@@mechsikanerof course it is expensive for an Austrian too!
“Affordable housing is available all over Austria” … Vorarlberg sadly disagrees.
He did say "Austria", not small-Switzerland ^^
@@JacenLP Kanton Übrig is how we call ourselves sometimes!
@@benjaminhalbeisen9175 lol too accurate
Habt ihr keine Sozialbauträger in Vorarlberg?
When your city is an imperial capitol that is suddenly sans empire, resulting in a population lower today than a hundred years ago, you're kind of playing on easy mode when it comes to housing policy.
I think more cities should consider tackling their housing crises by losing WWI.
Then again you have way more resources when it's the other way round
It's really not though, vienna is bigger now.
I have a pension of $3750 a month and am planning on traveling the world full time. My daily budget for housing is $30 a day. Surprisingly Vienna is a city that I can stay in long term if I want. I’ve already been to 22 countries and Vienna might be my favorite city ever. The public transportation, the site seeing, the people watching, everything about it is just awesome.
Sir where are you from? And what passport you hold?🫣
I love these videos. I had the privilege of visiting Vienna for the first time a month ago... well worth a visit. These videos prepared me for the subways🙂
Housing is expensive: you just described Ireland in 3 words!
That's every developed country.
Ireland or just Dublin?
@@JayPatel-ls6wn That's every country
I find it insane how much funnier the video gets when I watch it in Austrian. How much your native language or a particular dialect/accent can change the mood.
5:24 even outside the city center you often don't need a car, especially if you live near an underground or train station.
It is a vicious circle when Rent is influenced by the value of the land, value of the land is influenced by demand for housing, and housing construction is influenced to higher rent
5:02 that's why you should join the renter's union (Mietervereinigung). They offer legal assistance to members.
Of course you probably still don't get your contract extended if you have a fixed-term contract, but you can just rent another old apartment then and repeat the same process if necessary.
Actually some people do it like that. If you have a low income it's for sure worth all the hassle.
At 5:31 the text blurb uses the wrong "too" in the phrase "way to strongly".
In Ireland you use around 70-80% of your income for housing cost - rent without bill’s 😂
My mom is living in vienna for about 11 years and she told me the prices are quite expensives and she's rather looking at buying apartments in Romania since it's cheaper rather than vienna.
Albania is also cheaper then Romania. Also some African countries is cheaper the. Albania
And here I am living in a small village in the countryside 45 min away from vienna - because the rents there are at least twice as high for less room (also I do prefer the quiet compared to a big city)
I don't know anyone who lives in Vienna and thinks of the rent as "cheap" (ok compared to cities like Hamburg or Munich maybe they are but those cities do have crazy prices)
For another examle you should look at how housing works in Singapore.
You're really good and explaining, thorough and puting simple
I lived in Vienna and rents are only cheap for Viennese who have either a Gemeindewohnung (public housing) or a generations old rent contract. If you move to Vienna from the other regions of Austria or from abroad, you won't get one of these ever. Its a complicated system that favors Viennese locals, because they are also the voters on which the socialist party in the City Hall depends. On the free market rents are not cheap. The last 100 years - since the Emperor was ousted, the mayor of Vienna was always from the same social party (unly interrupted by the Nazi years). The better ties you have to this party, the higher the chances you get one of these cheap flats.
One thing that I see in places that might help the land issue is a public-private partnership. In exchange for giving housing developers tax credits on buying land/building costs, the city gets to claim a percentage of units in a building that must be association housing (since "old" housing is locked, and public housing is basically locked). It would allow the city to build more public housing because it wouldn't be competing for land. This would be _in addition to_ (not instead of) full "association housing" buildings, and apply to most new "market housing". Would that be something Vienna as a culture could look at and study to see if it would work?
Vienna already does that. Many private projects are only approved if there’s a specific percentage of social housing within the complex
@@gerrymnt9250 Thank you.
Many of my friend lives in Austria still have rent lower then 300 euro , although not all of them support mittelzeitel registration
HE RETURNED!
In the second largest citiy of Austria Graz the price of newly bulit residential places is on avrege 13€/m²
Thanks for sharing this! It was really interesting to hear about a different public housing system. God bless you :)
When I first went to Austria in 2015 my rent was about 240 euro , when I left Austria this year the rent was 490 euro
Holy hell the median income is just 26064€?
That's like $26064
netto.. thats pretty much normal here and ppl still get along
That’s netto. Which is really high also for European standards
It's really not. If you were to add all the health insurance stuff and all the other crap which in the US is not included.. you have to like 2x or 3x the number I reckon.
Except that it’s $28087, currency exchange rate doesn’t ring a bell to you?
As a labor & public economist this was super interesting. Housing is such a fundamental necessity and in everywhere I have lived has felt like the landlords are treat me as a commodity and my life is but coin in their coffer.
Also, I am sorry but I can't read your citations very easily (I only speak English); what is the name of the policy passed in 1981 in Vienna that set the old/new housing? I want to look into it to see if I can find data & do research.
Affordable housing is a great social asset. We need a lot more of it.
I believe the market, with appropriate regulation, can work wonders. Simply allow for more mixed-use high-density housing, less zoning restrictions on height, but strict requirements for spaces between buildings.
The old housing is energy inefficient, as its thick walls take a lot or energy to heat or cool. It also usually lacks elevators, making it harder to use by older people (and European population is growing older). It is far better than getting into debt due to rent, or being homeless, but it can be much improved if replaced with higher new buildings.
I live in the USA and the pandemic put rentals through the roof. They've not come down, and it's clear this is the new norm.
Two primary reasons: single family home construction slowed to a trickle during the pandemic (as you might expect), and tradional renters (unmarried peoples, students, and young couples without children) stopped wanting roomates (which is what we call flatmates), who could potentially get them sick should another pandemic break out. Between the two, this dumped millions of additional Americans into the renting market whom would have otherwise bought a home or co-habitated. And as we all know, when demand outpaces supply, price increases.
Bare in mind, this is America, the notion of government mandated rent control is literally a foreign concept whose existence is relegated to a sparse set of highly localized laws. And except for the very poor, there is no such thing as a public housing scheme. That being said, overall, we're still #1 (I was going to write 'the number one place to live' but if I go listing every specific thing at which we're number one, I'll be here anywhere from several days to several years 😉).
It's this video a joke? A 35-40mq apartment goes from 700 to 850€!
Only the social buildings are cheap, but if you're a youngster just moved to the city you CAN'T access to the social buildings!
Plus the apartments in old buildings are a total mess! Electric heating, no curtains ecc ecc.
Please don't believe this video!
Source: I moved in Vienna 2 years ago
Vienna used to have a horrid poverty issue, especially into the 1920-30's and 40's albeit both decades for a different reason.
I'm glad they take care of their people, i just can't stand the humidity from the danube in summer.
The general lack of Air condtioning made it rough!
Living in Ireland where our entire country doesn't even have any available private apartments, I kid you not, we genuinely have next to no private apartments and the few that we do have are either operated illegally for massive profit and/or are mouldy, damp, overpriced hovels.
I have to say rent prices have exploded in the last year.
Paying 19€/sqm in an outer district of Vienna.
Not cheap anymore.
I pay 10.30€ per sqm in a tiny German city with around 50,000 inhabitants and a university. This includes heat and electricity.
Houses are expensive because:
- concentration of jobs and oportunities in a few urban centers, the death of the smaller towns and the rural exodus
- government intervention in the market, fiscal instability and low trust by the landlords in the goverment, reducing the amount of houses in the market, wich reduces competition.
- historically low interest rates wich lead to more people owning houses instead of renting them.
- public transportation that is foucosed on the city centers and not getting people in the suburbs to a suburbian train station and from there to the metro and from there to their jobs, so, people have to live close to the city to be able to work because of the first point.
- concentration of jobs in a small area of the city, wich makes everybody want to live as close to it as possible
- terrible implementation of public housing policies, wich lead to governments dumping the responsability of social security in the private housing market by goverment intervention stated in point 2.
- regulations and burocracy limiting construction, wich costs money for every hour construction workers are not building, resulting in more construction of high value-added housing, because low value-added housing wont be profitable
The perfect example of all of this is Lisbon. The only economically dynamic urban center in it's coutry, heavily regulated construction, low execution of public housing programs due to government ineficiency, leading to the dumping of social responsabilities in the private sector, demonization of profits and antagonism of landlords by public policies, causing the rental market to grow below demand. Insufficient and unreliable public transport and the reduction of the residential potential of the south bank of the Tagus and the north-west Lisbon Metro area, leading to the need for people to live in the city itself, where most of the well-paid jobs are concentrated. High levels of home buying, promoted and financed by successive governments between the 1980s and 2000s, the Constant risk of rent fixation, with reduces trust in the market, regulations making eviction really hard, wich also reduces the trust in tenants and willingness of landlords to put their extra houses in the renting market, or requiring concrete proof of stable income, which makes renting more difficult for less well-off families or with less stable jobs/fluctuating incomes.
And many times, landlords try to rent their houses for short periods of time to foreigners, which is an activity with much less risk and regulation than renting to Portuguese people.
I know all this because I have already tried to rent my house in a Portuguese town in the interior. Regulation, taxes and risks in general meant that an income of €250 (a reasonable estimated value for the location) would be a loss after 1 year. So I ended up selling the house for the net worth of 30 years of rent payments before taxes and risk assumptions.
Many more cities need to be like Vienna.
Don’t just stand there expecting other cities to be like Vienna, become Vienna yourself first.
@@omg.mesohungrypeople can be cities? Nice
@@omg.mesohungryYes I’ll go protes…oh wait they called the cops on me
If you and GCPGrey did a crossover video, I’d get so damn confused 😅
Sorry but this is not correct.
Prices are still dramatically increasing by up to 10% per year since several years, even before inflation hit Austria.
8,7 per m2 is completely wrong. The average rent in all part of Vienna is >15,-
There is no rent limits in Vienna except for old buildings built 200 years ago. There are not so many of those buildings and it is also not the best place to live (well compared to apartmens in other cities they are still in very good condition).
Rents are only subsidized for people with very low income. So about 90% of the people won't get the subsidy.
There is another type of subsidy but it is only when buying apartments. And companies don't sign contracts with City of Vienna anymore for this subsidy to avoid stricter regulations. Those apartments have waiting lists of several years anyways.
i guess this average includes old unlimited contracts, otherwise the figure 8.7/m^2 can't be right. but it's impossible for anyone not already having such a contract to obtain one so calculating them in is kinda misleading
You're really good and explaining, thorough and puting simple .unlike sam univeristy
Reminds me of the video "The housing crisis is the everything crisis" by britmonkey, nice video btw!
83 cents per square foot, lol. I pay $3.52 per square foot and my rent is low for the area.
Amsterdam student and pay around 30 Euro per m2 and 55% of my income goes to rent, exclusing energy and water.
Housing prices rise faster than wages and interest rates are lower than inflation, so saving for a house is near impossible.
If you're not a student but you're still spending more than 1/3 of your disposable income on housing (viz. rent or mortgage payments), then you're losing out.
In the Nordic countries, there are mechanisms in place to try to prevent that from happening. But in a city like Copenhagen, there's such a high demand for apartments that a black market has emerged that somewhat off-sets what the government is trying to achieve, which is reasonably and realistically affordable housing.
Basically the same or better without the wait times could be achieved by keeping interest rates above a minimum and not allowing foreign investors to buy homes (vs requiring you to live in a place for whatever many years, so onerous and inflexible). US homes were super affordable before the 1980s or so, and I claim it was because interest rates were high, and very few foreign investors that had money existed compared to the size of the us population.
This reminds me. I want to go back to visit Vienna again. It's so nice there.
Edit: If I was a billionaire I would literally make it my sole job/purpose to take shitty landlords to court for charging too much rent against the law. That's so ludicrously messed up.
I'm not sure this would balance out all the stuff you'd have to do to become a billionaire.
Problem is, especially for small landlords who bought in the 80th or 90ths(when most old Houses Vienna werr in a dire state )or just inheritated the place, a maximum price of ~ 6 Euros per m² is not enough to rennovate or upkeep the houses with the current "bloated" prices (more than 1000 Euro per m² for a modernisation)The Richterwert system was an improvment for landlords and renters alike (more mobilisation, clearer outlines in the law)but at the end it just leads to a dominance of resellers on the market. with the start of the low interest era and the rising housing demand, most of the old owners just sold to redevelopers, who split the houses and tend to resell them as condos. Same situation in Graz and Linz. Salzburg and Innsbruck are dominated by Post war buildings in the housing sector. Wiener Wohnen also lacks money to upkeep its vast housing stock(suffering the same fate as small owner, not generating enough for necessary repairs or proper expansion). With interest rates rising and Viennas surge of growth slowing a little bit down, maybe things will change for the better, especially paired with new more adept laws.
the interior urge to move to austria for university
Economic factors aside, I say do it. Young people from all over is what brings the fun to this city.
Yeah do it. I'm living here for 1 semester and it's been the best decision in my life.
could anyone find where the figures from 1:00 come from? all the sources are in german and ich spreche kein deutsch
Considering a city is ultimately responsible for picking up the tab for social breakdowns stemming from the housing sector, is a 25% stake an appropriate fiscal and social policy?
Incredible, you made a boring and confusing topic interesting!
In Vienna you have Sozialbau and Gemeindebau where you can get cheap flats. Its the rest of the social system left. But its impossible to get one in the center. If you want to rend a flat as a person not based in vienna since at least 5 years its as expensive as any othe rmajor european city.
A solution for the not-enough-land-thing could be to introduce a right of first refusal for the city on real estate market.
17:45 "primarily determined by wealth" do you mean only wealth (money/assets you already have), or income (money you have coming in), or both? For economic analyses, differentiating between wealth and income can be important. Enough wealth can generate income, and income can be saved to become wealth. But still, they're not the same thing. One with wealth and no income might have diminishing wealth (unless interest on the wealth exceeds expenses). And no substantial wealth can lead to financial instability.
In regards to the old housing: the buidling structure is most often terrible
The rooms are 4m high and they have no good isolated + thin walls.
A modern building would have only ~1/3rd of the heating expenditure in comparison.
Even if the rent is much lower the heating costs are much higher and you will hear everything throug the thin walls.
I think the background of thebold housing law is as follows:
- before 1981, all rents were regulated.
- In 1981 Austria was governed by the Socialist party (SPÖ) with absolute majority. Like every bourgeois party at that time, they wanted to make neo-liberal reforms. But they still wanted to appear socialist, as this was more popular.
- So they said, we allow free market to encourage investments ("coincidentally" at the same time the program for building public housing in Vienna, which was also governed by SPÖ with absolute majority, was slowly cut back), but still cap rents for old buildings, but they set a fixed date so that on the long term, it would transition to more free market and less caps, as there woukd be more new and less old buildings.
In New York a 50 square meter apartment is $35 per square meter! Prices are so high most people can't afford to move without subsidies. The situation shows no sign of improvement and may get worse in the future. An interesting correlation I observed is that the cost per square meter should be equal to the minimum wage 🧐 in order for a person to spend 30% or less of their net income on rent, This can be used anywhere in the world.
you don't have to live in NY
@@leouvarov8982 yes because people can afford to move and they should have to leave their friends and family because landlords deserve huge profits
Anyone else find it kind of weird how he is using American currency on the thumbnail about a video on Austria?
I bet its really hard to get an apartment since the price isn't set by market demand
Thank you for good vid.
Everything is about the land and the way the city government manages stuff.
Vienna ranks top 5 in different studies and rankings in the world. So they did one or two things right.
One of the keys to "affordable" houses is to not sell land to hedge funds, sheikhs or oligharchs.
But give away about 20 m² of land to each citizen living in city for at least two years.
In return the city can and should own 20% of the property, because they provided the land at no cost.
Associations, owned by the citizens and with democratic voting mechanisms can and should be installed, just to organize stuff properly.
The ownership of the apartment is key to building some wealth and prepare for retirement.
Rents are like an additional income tax.
The government should, besides the land, provide cheap interest only mortages (~0,2% per month) for about 50% of the construction costs.
And third be very proactive in providing land for building and provide infrastructure, like railroads and public transport.
Anyhow, Vienna already does an excellent job here, and other city governments should learn a thing or two from Vienna.
A good starting point for city planners is your vid, ty.
From what I do know, I am a fan of the Singapore style of making all housing public housing, and being unable to purchase a home, rather instead you get a 99 year lease.
No idea but as an austrian they dont seem cheap to me at all.
come to amsterdam, you'll pay additional rent just to have your own toilette
Vienna & Barcelona are the livable cities that all others ought to be modelled on.
As someone living in Vienna and searching for a payable apartment since over 3 years, I really want to know where do you got for infos from, cause nowadays you pay over 20€/qm
I think that LVT is a right solution for an upcoming problems in Vienna
*Arbeiter von Wien playing in the distance*
That’s one of the reasons why Vienna is consistently ranked the most livable city in the world
This is an exceptional and conclusive video! Entertaining throughout, thanks!
Housing prices in Beijing (the most hot market in China) are 72.4% lower than in New York. The highest value market in America.
Hey, so ok, this has been done around 6months ago, but even back then, the average price per m2 was never EUR 8,7 - where do you get these figures from? We are way up between 15 and 28!!
Why did I read the title as Vietnam ...
Housing costs have truly become reticules. I really don't understand wey this isn't farther up on governments priority lists. even on the countryside it is getting reticules.
Hi, I think you meant "ridiculous" and "why" instead of reticules and wey
Yeah I mean, it seems like it would be a government's first priority to take care of its citizens most basic need, that being food and shelter.
@@RyanTosh yes this always was so wieder to me. I mean most developed countries subsidize basic food products but public hauling was somehow forgotten in the 21 century.
@@RyanTosh best goverments can do is take away your freedom of speech and right to defend yourself and send your tax money to Ukraine. The government helping people, HA
@@hellishcyberdemon7112 Wtf are you talking about m8. Pretty much every western democracy keeps freedom of speech basically intact, with the exception of speech that causes direct and severe harm. Taking away your right to defend yourself using [weapon] is perfectly justified when [weapon] is responsible for hundreds of times more deaths than it prevents. And sending a teensy tiny perfectage of your nation's tax income to support a democracy being invaded by an imperialist foreign power is something to be proud of, and something which doesn't harm you in the slightest.
nah, it's getting more and more expensive. might be cheaper compared to other european countries but for the past 5 years it's gotten quite a bit more on the rent. and when your salary cannot allow you to buy your own apartment, cannot say that Austria is cheap anymore.
I pay 11.50€ per squaremeter and here the median net income is way below 1000€ a month, dont let Vienna become like this :)
Vienna is like this. Most jobs pay around 1500 net, and these apartment prices are not realistic.
They should implement this trinity in luxembourg
Woooo ein video über wien! Lets goooo
yeah no, I'm currently looking for a new apartment and even a small 32m² apartment is almost unaffordable. And I'm a software engineer with a degree!
You say that Association Housing requires no deposit yet it literally requires a 4 or 5 figure deposit (which sounds insanely high).
It's not a deposit, it's a share of the construction cost, as the rent is not high enough to fully pay it off.
What you, however, leave out of the equation is the *quality* of these cheap apartments. I’ve been living in Vienna for 8 years now and never ever have I seen an apartment in an old house that I would wish to spend more than one night in, let alone living there for years. So, if you want to live somewhere that actually feels like living in the center of civilized Europe, the rents suddenly become 20-25€ per square meter (I’m paying 21€/m right now). Bonus point: the costs of heating and electricity, that you also didn’t mention, are by far higher in the old housing (because of the high ceilings and energy efficiency of old buildings), which also makes really lining there not as extremely cheap and nice as you are trying to portrait it.
interesting, i would pick old buildings over new ones every single time. the fact i got 3.9m high ceilings instead of the claustrophobic 2.4m in new buildings is probably the most important factor.
How do I take some Vienna and put it in LA?
Get socialists into office.
Either by vote or force.
Subsidised housing should have priority on buying land!! And even better get those plots below market value!!
Check out Bulgaria and Sofia. Less than 6€/sqm
0ne time i searched a for a place in my ciety the house was a Old house build in the 1400s .... OLD HOUSE
I love the system here in Vienna however I wish they would rewrite this law to make it a certain age rather than a certain year for defin8ng old housing 1981 was 36 years after 1945 so maybe 36 years would be a good value. or maybe 40 years.
Why not block the construction of new condos?
If Vienna wants to retain it´s cultural heritage, it has to do something about the Houses built before 1945. Neither imperial , nor socialist 1920s nostalgia will cover the fact that Vienna is not able to keep up with demand, which makes the city "bleed" on the long term. These houses are the city´s treasure and are either demolished due to the strong regulations or converted into luxury appartments not available for rent. Even the non profit "Wiener Wohnen" can´t upkeep most of it´s pre war houses on a good standard, so how are privates expected to perform that way? Also the SPÖ really does break the boundaries of city and party marketing.