Private rented housing in Germany

This paper provides a comprehensive description of the private rented housing sector and its legal environment in the former West Germany. Throughout the seventies and eighties the sector benefited from liberal tenure laws, rather favourable taxation vis-à-vis owner-occupation, and the increased reliance on housing allowances as opposed to subsidies to social housing. However, when the iron curtain fell, an acute housing shortage emerged. Liberal policies have since been abandoned in favour of tighter tenure laws and large-scale subsidies to the sector.