Just curious -- why is Berlin rent cheap? Seems like capital cities (or large cities in general), in wealthy Western countries, are generally really steep.
Because normally the financial, cultural, and governmental centres of a country are in the same city. In Germany that's not the case as the financial capital is in Frankfurt which means in Berlin you don't have the high-end of the market driven by bankers, executives and professionals like you do in other capitals.
Throw in high-unemployment, a city which is huge physically compared to it's population (it's bigger than london with a third of the population), lots of low-income self-employed artists, writers, etc.
All of these factors combine to make it a cheap city. I'm currently staying in a 4 star hotel in a nice fairly central area for £35/night. You'd pay more than that for a smaller studio flat in london.
Berlin has a lot of unrented office space. Sometimes in bad shape, but a weekend of painting and you have a nice office. Berlin is cheaper than other german cities because of many reasons. One is the high unemployment rate compared to other german cities.
Berlin population was 4,338,756 in May 1939 and now it's 3.4M.
Another reason is it's a subsidized new capital, lots of incentive for real estate investments in hope that the business/employments take off.
Sure you can. Berlin had no chance to really grow all through the Cold War, even worse, part of it was walled off and frontline at the same time. That’s why Berlin’s population plummeted even when Germany’s population grew.
It’s not easy to rebound from that (after 45 years), even when you become capital, pretty much all of Germany’s successful post-war industry established itself in western West Germany. And not just industry, Post and Telekom are both still in Bonn and will probably be forever.
Berlin is also in the middle of a huge sparsely populated area. If there are no companies in Berlin that have jobs to offer not many people are going to move there.
(By the way, looking at lists with the biggest German cities is a bit misleading. Sure, Berlin handily comes out top, but look at this map: [+]. That’s not a zillion different cities like those silly natives with their tradition would want to make you believe, that’s just one city with five million people in it.)
There is a lot of space, not so many people, and an efficient transport network means that people don't need to live all in the same area, which would drive up rents.
Depending which part of the city you want to live, it is far from being cheap. But there are a lot of places where it quite affordable, but I am not sure if this suits everybody (travelling distance, "neighborhood").
I am partly living in Berlin for 4-5 years now and now moving there with my startup completely.
Probably because it's position during the Cold War. It was not a good place for "Old Money" and big industries and financial institutions of West German were located in safer places.
