Germany’s housing market ‘contaminated’ by widespread racism – DW – 12/13/2025
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-housing-market-contaminated-by-widespread-racism/a-75108517?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQPMjc1MjU0NjkyNTk4Mjc5AAEe9nYdNTR2fjBihZRPaVLn_lkORzjymrTDzNS8coYtl5TjO71frojfZ8ut9po_aem_FwoHe0e8vpJ1drzGQEXk2g
Posted by jarvedttudd
15 Comments
All housing markets are in a squeeze pretty regardless who you are unless of course you have money.
That’s a good article. Opened my eyes a little bit. As a white German, I don’t notice that myself, so it’s good to be informed.
As soon as there is scarcity of apartments there will be discrimination against race , citizenship, sex or age.
When you have 80 applicants you select that one that you personally believe is easier to live with.
My friend, who is Ukrainian, has a permanent contract with a good paying job. Has been living here since the war started and can communicate relatively fluent in German. He hasn’t been able to find an apartment of his own and is still sharing living space with other Ukrainians who escaped when the war started.
I have always suspected this to be the reason. This finding just confirms it.
It starts with the name. If it sounds foreign you are already facing more obstacles.
Its true. Many of my friends with non german names struggle to find a place to live
Yeah, I had a friend at university, she had a degree in German with top grades and was on her way to become a teacher, never met a person who spoke a clearer and more beautiful German, she easily was better than me.
But she had a Turkish surname which led to ~75% of landlords to end the phone call as soon as she introduced herself.
She fixed that by not telling her name at the start und smiling away the “Oh your German is actually great, didn’t think that was possible with that name haha…”
This is terrible, but unfortunately not surprising. The tighter the housing market, the easier it is for property owners/managers to turn away people based on their background. If we had (a lot more) supply and it actually shifted to a renters market, this would greatly alleviate the power of landlords to discriminate. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever manage to build all the necessary housing.
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This is also creating market bubble on rents, as a foreigner I ended up paying extremely high rent because not everyone was willing to rent me their apartment. I don’t judge them though, I don’t even know German 😀
Apartments are scarce, and tenants’ rights in Germany are very strong.
From a landlord’s perspective, a rental contract is a long-term contractual obligation that cannot be unilaterally terminated and comes with significant legal and financial risks. Choosing a tenant can therefore amount to a commitment for potentially many years.
For this reason, it is essential to ensure that a tenant is financially reliable and that communication works smoothly. The latter is considerably easier when there is a shared language and a familiar cultural context. This also helps establish a basic level of trust before entering into such a far-reaching legal and financial relationship.
You can call that racism. For me it’s minimizing risk and an adjustment to a legally heavily regulated market.
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Not surprising. Casual racism is a separate problem from apartment scarcity, and these practicing the first just mix these two together and say it’s normal.
That is a unintended consequence of the real strong german renter protections, once you rent a home it is almost impossible to get rid of the tenant except if you want to move yourself into the appartment, even just not paying is just the way to a long court battle while the landlord is on the hook for all costs throughout even the gas and the water (not that strong protections are bad mind you)
Therefore every landlord tends to go with the tenant who will statistically make the least noise, the least ware and tare and pays the bills and will not go broke ( so single german bankers or public servants who will drive home for the weekend are the gold star class) while students, immigrants, families with children, dog or cat owners can forget getting a good apartment
It’s disheartening to see how many comments are defending landlords’ racist behavior.
As if having a “german sounding name” makes someone a better tenant.