In Germany, a surprising number of apartments are empty even though they are rented. But why pay rent for an apartment that you don’t use? We asked.
© Riis Riiis/Unsplash
Nico Albrecht rents an apartment that many people dream of: a renovated old building, just over 90 square meters in size, three rooms in the popular Akazienkiez in Berlin-Schöneberg. By today’s Berlin standards it is actually quite cheap. Albrecht pays just over 1,000 euros in rent per month.
He just doesn’t live there. Albrecht moved from Berlin with his wife and daughter a few years ago. Since then, the apartment in Akazienkiez has been empty most of the year. “For sentimental and practical reasons,” he says, he kept them. But more on that later.