Overview
- The CDU/CSU/SPD coalition agreed in early July to draft a federal law that would stop states from passing expropriation laws for large private housing portfolios and to create a bundeseigene Wohnungsbaugesellschaft (WBG) to build affordable homes.
- Vonovia’s CEO Luka Mucic publicly welcomed the expropriation ban at the company’s half‑year presentation in Bochum and said Vonovia intends to bid as a project developer in WBG public‑private projects.
- Tenant advocates in North Rhine‑Westphalia, led by the Deutscher Mieterbund NRW, rejected Vonovia as an acceptable WBG partner and demanded that any public subsidies carry permanent price‑binding for units.
- Private landlord groups such as Haus & Grund warned a federal builder will not by itself solve core obstacles such as high construction costs, slow permits and labor shortages and that subsidized state competition could distort markets.
- The WBG remains only a political intention with no settled capital, legal form, procurement rules or timetable, and the final design is likely to be contested ahead of the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus vote on September 20.