Nonprofit Landlord Types on the Housing Market—A Key to Rising Displacement in Berlin?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Determinants of a landlord’s propensity to displace their tenants.

Table 1. Ownership structure of the rental housing stock in Berlin (2011).

Type of landlord		Berlin
		Share (%)	Number
Profit-oriented	Private companies	30.2	493,400
	Private landlords	40.5	661,400
Nonprofit-oriented	State-owned housing companies (City of Berlin)	16.7	273,100
	Housing cooperatives	11.3	183,900
	Novel shared homeownership models	<0.1	∼700^†
	Others (churches, charities, foundations, etc.)	∼1.2	∼20,000^†
Total*		100.0	1,632,500

Note. Figures marked with ^† refer to our estimates based on individual consultation with city officials (as no statistics are available).Source: Authors’ own calculation, for Berlin based on GdW (2014) and Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt (2014, p. 37; database: census 2011).

Table 2. Distribution of landlord types in the study area.

Type of landlord		Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg; Mitte
		Share (%)	Number
Profit-oriented	Private companies	24.8	455
	Private landlords	51.0	934
Nonprofit-oriented	State-owned housing companies (City of Berlin)	14.5	266
	Housing cooperatives	6.2	114
Other	Other	3.5	64
Total		100.0	1,833

Note. As there is no fine-grained statistical account of housing stock ownership in Berlin, we derived the figures in this table from our survey of movers. They could therefore be somewhat biased toward profit-oriented landlords, because it is fair to assume that their tenants tend to move more often than tenants in nonprofit-oriented housing, as the latter offer more favorable and more secure tenancies. Source: Authors’ own survey, N = 1,833.

Table 3. Interview sample.

No.	Institution	Actor group	Date
1	Board member	Young housing cooperative	January 15, 2019
2	Board member	Mature housing cooperative	February 12, 2019
5	Chief executive	Public housing company	January 30, 2019
6	Chief executive	Land foundation	January 22, 2019
7	Manager	Public housing authority	March 7, 2019
8	Chief executive	Land foundation	January 28, 2018
10	Member and counselor	Mietshäuser Syndikat	March 27, 2018
11	Member and counselor	Mietshäuser Syndikat	March 7, 2018
30	Chief executive	Consulting and research	February 12, 2019
31	Board member	Mature housing cooperative	January 23, 2023

Figure 2. Displacement rate by landlord type (based on moving households).

Source: Authors’ own survey, N = 1,833. Since not all respondents were able to indicate the ownership type of their rental property before they moved, N is significantly lower than the overall response of 2,082 questionnaires.

Table 4. Displacement rate by landlord type (based on absolute number of housing units).

	Profit-oriented landlords		Nonprofit-oriented landlords
	Private companies	Private landlords	State-owned housing companies	Housing cooperatives
Tenants (occupancies) in study area (2018)	296.215	181.235	110.199	33.708
Distribution of landlord types (%)	47.7	29.2	17.7	5.4
Expected number of displacements (basis: average displacement rate of 1.3%^a)	3,844	2,352	1,430	437
Extrapolated number of displacements (basis: actual displacement rates per landlord type^a)	3,944	2,993	557	224
Displacement rate (% of tenants per year)	1.3	1.7	0.5	0.7
Absolute difference between expected and extrapolated number of displaced persons	100	641	−873	−213

Note. Source: ^a Authors’ own study; authors’ calculations on the basis of Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg (2019) (private companies, private landlords), Busse et al. (2020) (state-owned housing companies) and personal information from BBU (15/05/2023) (housing cooperatives).

Table 5. Displacement triggers experienced by all respondents, by landlord type (multiple responses per respondent possible).

	Type of landlord
Displacement triggers	Profit-oriented landlords		Nonprofit-oriented landlords
	Private companies* (n = 455)	Private landlords (n = 934)	State-owned housing companies (n = 266)	Housing cooperatives (n = 114)
	%	%	%	%
Rent increase	37.8	32.0	26.3	27.2
Structural decay	22.4	18.3	6.4	6.1
Structural upgrading	14.3	15.8	13.9	17.5
Sale of house or flat	16.3	14.3	6.0	3.5
Disturbances to living	12.3	10.2	5.3	7.9
Termination	1.8	6.6	1.5	1.8
Landlord pressure	4.2	4.4	1.1	3.5

Source: Authors’ own survey, N = 1,769.

Table 6. Classification of displacement avoidance in nonprofit landlord types.

	Moderate rent levels	Supply of affordable housing	Tenant participation
Public housing companies	+	+	–
Mature housing cooperatives	+	–	–
Young housing cooperatives	++	o	+
Novel shared ownership models	++	o	++

Source: Authors’ own typology.

Table 7. Objectives and management strategies of nonprofit landlord types.

Landlord types and Subgroups	State-owned housing companies	Tenant cooperatives	Novel shared ownership structures
		Mature cooperatives (since 1880s) Young cooperative (since 1980s)	Mietshäuser Syndikat Land foundations
(Economic) Objectives	Entrepreneurial logics Housing provision for all social groups	Partly entrepreneurial logics Housing provision for members Partly self-governed	Commoning principles (e.g., solidarity toward future members, other urban commons) Self-governed
Management strategies	Spending focuses on maintenance of buildings and flats Rent and tenant control agreements Long-term decommodification not secured Partly profit-oriented (e.g., to cross-finance housing segments) Barely (rent-effective) modernization measures Mostly moderate rent development State-led expansion strategy of affordable housing Management from above	Spending focuses on maintenance of buildings and flats Partly rent and tenant control agreements Long-term decommodification secured Mostly not profit-oriented (profits are reinvested, partly dividend payout) Few (rent-effective) modernization measures Mostly moderate rent development Member-oriented development between conservation and moderate growth, not always affordable Management from above	Spending focuses on maintenance of buildings and flats Partly rent and tenant control agreements Long-term decommodification secured No profit-orientation Modernization measures only if wished by tenants Solidary cost rent model Expansion based on self-initiative of future tenants and support of existing tenants; mostly affordable Management from below
Displacement risks	Rent increases: Can be risky for lowest income groups Tenants protected from termination/sale Currently structural decay, etc. not relevant Contribution to easing on the housing market Low risk of direct displacement	Rent increases (mature cooperatives): Can be risky for lowest income groups Tenants protected from termination/sale over the long term Structural decay, etc. not relevant Contribution to easing on the housing market limited Low risk of direct displacement	No rent increases Tenants protected from termination/sale over the long term Structural decay, etc. not relevant, but risk of social conflicts among tenants Contribution to easing on the housing market limited No risk of direct displacement

Source: Authors’ own typology.

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