Berlin, September 13th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – Five years after voters backed the “Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen” referendum on dispossessions that would affect large real estate companies, the question of whether Berlin should seize large private housing stocks is once again splitting the city’s political parties ahead of the September 20th state election.
In September of 2021, more than a million Berliners voted in favor of forcing housing companies with over 3,000 apartments in the city into public ownership. The result was clear. Roughly 58 percent backed the plan. Yet the vote created no actual law. It only instructed the Senate to explore how such a transfer could work.
Since then, an expert commission concluded in June 2023 that Article 15 of the German constitution would permit the move, including compensations below market value. A centrist CDU-SPD coalition responded not with a housing law but with a broader framework law covering dispossession across sectors like water and energy, passed in March 2026 and not set to take effect until March 28th, 2028. No apartments have changed hands under either measure.
Where the Parties Stand
The divide among Berlin’s parties has hardened. Werner Graf, the Greens’ top candidate, told the “Tagesspiegel” newspaper” daily that he has never hidden his support for dispossessions, and he wants companies with large holdings brought under public ownership if the Greens enter government. He argued that Berlin would gain real assets in return for the debt needed to fund it, since the firms in question, in his words, are currently paying out substantial profits.
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Graf reiterated he would rather govern with the SPD and Die Linke than the CDU, accusing the current CDU-led Senate of cutting bike lanes, pushing to extend the A100 highway and reducing funding for culture and science.
Die Linke has gone further, making implementation of the 2021 referendum a condition for joining any future coalition, a stance that drew criticism from the SPD. The Greens back dispossessions too, though Graf also called for a rent cap law and converting office space into housing as faster fixes to the crisis.
The SPD and CDU remain oppose these approaches. So does the far right AfD.
Public Opinion Has Shifted
A survey commissioned by the RBB, published about a week ago, found that support for the policy in Berlin has slipped since 2021. For the first time since the referendum, a plurality now opposes it, with 46 percent calling dispossessions a bad idea against 37 percent in favor.
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The partisan gap is stark. Nearly 80 percent of CDU supporters reject the idea, along with 64 percent of AfD supporters and 55 percent of SPD supporters. Among Green voters, 53 percent are in favor, while Linke voters back it most strongly at 74 percent.
Even if Berlin’s parties reach an agreement after the election, the matter could be decided elsewhere. The CDU and SPD in the federal governing coalition have agreed in principle to pass a national law preventing states from dispossessing private rental housing through their own legislation. No actual law has been introduced yet, and the federal government said in late August that it was still determining which ministry would take the lead. Whether the measure would hold up constitutionally is also unclear.
For now, the fate of the 2021 referendum sits at the intersection of an unresolved legal framework, a widening gap between the party camps, and a voter base that has grown more skeptical since it first backed the idea.
