Local authorities are trying to stop the outflow of the population from the German capital, and the rate freeze will effect more than one and a half million residential premises.
“It is correct that Berlin tries to stop the spiraling rent costs,” Ulrich Ropertz, the head of the German Tenants Association, told German news agency dpa. “The federal legislature has missed the opportunity to pass effective measures in recent years.”
Critics of the move have already warned that homeowners will not invest in major repairs, which they say will reduce the quality of the housing stock in the city.
Rents have increased rapidly in recent years, pushing middle class families from Berlin’s central residential neighbourhoods to the city’s outskirts.
Only a minority of Berliners are the owners of houses or apartments as they, like most Germans, prefer to rent.
