Roadmap to nowhere - Berlin's housing milestone masks a market in crisis

Berlin's state-owned housing associations reached a landmark target this month, crossing the threshold of 400,000 municipally owned apartments ahead of schedule — a political achievement a decade in the making. Yet for the hundreds of thousands of Berliners still searching for affordable accommodation in one of Europe's tightest rental markets, the milestone offers little comfort. Rents are rising sharply, vacancy sits at a historic low, and privately funded new-build housing is effectively out of reach for the majority of the city's residents. The gap between political achievement and market reality has rarely been wider.