Privatization of state property: Federal government transfers Vonovia millions

Rising rents in metropolitan areas do not shed a good light on the privatization of public housing. The sale seems even more questionable when large real estate groups take millions from the federal government for rights to use apartments that previously belonged to it.

The real estate group Vonovia collects millions from the federal government for occupancy rights to apartments that were previously owned by the state. Around 10.3 million euros in public funds have flowed into the group since 2015. This emerges from the answer of the federal government to a question from the left member of the Bundestag Caren Lay, which is available to the editorial network Germany (RND). The federal government also had to transfer money for investment grants.

The federal housing service supports civil servants and soldiers in finding apartments near the place of employment. The Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks (BImA) is responsible for this. Since, according to the RND report, the federal government has too few apartments for its employees, it buys occupancy rights from private providers that cost between 1000 and 1200 euros per apartment and year. The left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag criticizes the fact that these rights are also being bought for apartments that used to belong to the state itself.

"The federal government must build more apartments again"

"The devastating privatization policy of the last decades is falling on the federal government's feet," said the left-wing parliamentary's housing policy spokeswoman Caren Lay, the RND. "The federal government does not have enough apartments for its employees and instead has to rent millions from the Vonovia real estate group every year. The group makes profits at the expense of the public sector," Lay said. That could not be communicated, since Vonovia's business area only came into being as a result of the "insane privatizations", criticized the Left MP. "The federal government must reduce its dependence on corporations through its own new building and a public housing program based on the Vienna model," demanded Lay.

The DAX group Vonovia owns 400,000 apartments in Germany, Sweden and Austria. Vonovia is one of the largest German rental companies. The company emerged from Deutsche Annington, which bought a total of 64,000 former railway workers' apartments from the federal government in 2001. The company is regularly criticized by tenant protectionists – for example when large-scale rent increases are imminent after modernization measures.