Germany's Mietrecht II and the housing shortage it won't solve

Germany's Mietrecht II reform package has passed cabinet and is now in parliamentary procedure, with the federal government targeting passage before the summer recess. The five measures it contains each sound, in isolation, like modest adjustments to an existing framework. Together, practitioners argue, they represent something more significant.

"It is the accumulation of all these many pinpricks," said Sascha Nöske, CEO of Berlin-based property manager Strategis, at a Rueckerconsult webinar on the implications of the reform. "Each individual measure seems moderate. But they all land on the same side of the scale."