The British are obsessed with property ownership, but Germans, by and large, are happy to rent. The European Union's biggest economy also has its lowest rate of owner-occupied housing, and the highest proportion of people living in homes rented at market prices (as opposed to state-subsidised ones). That is why rising rents, not rising house prices, were a theme in Germany's recent elections, with even the conservative Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union showing sympathy for some kind of 'rent brake'. Germany's renter-heavy housing market has unique historical and cultural causes-and interesting consequences. Much housing has been owned by state or city governments, or public-sector firms like Deutsche Bahn, the national railway.
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