The desire for more home ownership in Germany remains unbroken. However, not all households succeed in putting this desire into practice. The theoretical and empirical literature on the external benefits and costs of owner-occupancy does not provide convincing arguments to justify political countermeasures against rising owner-occupier rates. In this paper, we argue that the regressive distributional effects of an urban development policy that aims to improve living conditions may be reduced with increasing owner-occupancy: While owners of development measures usually gain from their surroundings, tenants usually lose. However, the non-conservative parties in Germany hardly support home ownership. This is surprising given that the majority of non-conservative voters in most comparable countries are homeowners; in Germany, 49% of SPD voters are property owners. Non-conservative parties in Germany should develop strategies to realize the dream of home ownership through active ?left-wing politics? and to maintain or even win voters.

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1 November 2019

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Zeitschrift fur Immobilienokonomie, German Journal of Real Estate Research 5, pp.111-130, 2019

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DOI: 10.1365/s41056-019-00037-w

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1365/s41056-019-00037-w

This Journal article is published under the centre's Urban programme.