The German federal state and Berlin have taken unprecedented steps to help self-employed people during this crisis. The situation is evolving fast and it’s hard to keep an overview.
This post aims at providing as many resources as possible to let you sail through the storm. All the best and good luck.
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Judging by the amount of posts in the various Facebook groups and the comments’ section on this very blog, newcomers never cease to be baffled about how poor access to reliable internet is in this country. Whether it’s at home or on mobile, it’s hard for some to move to the first European economic power and experience internet like it’s 2009.
This happened to me too naturally. It’s more expensive, slower than back home and don’t get me started on how it takes to even open a line. This made me curious: how did this happen? I mean surely, reliable and fast internet is key to economic success. How has Germany let this develop?
Come with me on a journey of poor technological choices, lobbying and weak political will.
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The Berlin Expat portraits series aims at putting in word the realities of being a foreigner here. Sometimes, a biased opinion is needed to get a clearer picture of what Berlin is like.
Fourth post of our series “Berlin Expat Portraits”, we meet an Argentinian person after their Italian roots.
My name is Ivan, I come from the Patagonia Argentina and I’m 29 years old.
I enjoy photography very much but I don’t practice it on a professional level as I feel I like it best as just a hobbie. I shoot almost exclusively film both 35mm and medium format.
I’m in general terms a very social person and quite easy going although I’ve been told that people’s first impressions of me is that I’m very serious.. I guess it’s just my “concentrated face”.
It’s already been that long. 8 years of sharing my humble experience about bureaucracy in Germany. It’s crazy to think about that i started all of this, and continues to do this as a solo operation, a side project. I never imagined that it would take me this far, becoming some sort of authority for newcomers in Germany. Funnily enough, it sometimes leaves me with the feeling of being a masked internet watchman. I can attend expat events where nobody knows me IRL, secretly filled with the satisfaction that i might have helped a few persons in the room. Or at least, that’s what my foolish pride thinks. 🙂
It hasn’t always been easy to respond all comments and publish regularly. Time is a limited commodity these days. Yet, it seems to make an impact for many of you. The response continues to be great with more and more users seeing this blog everyday (about 2500 unique visitors per day). And as Germany continues to be attractive (and confusing), i suspect that SiB will continue to serve well in the next coming years.
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Once leading a simple life of little means, some of us are now facing the realities of adulthood. Enough with wasting money on rent, it’s time to buy property to call “home”. The prospect is exciting but the road is long, and the hurdles numerous. Some of them are particularly harsh on foreigners like us; language barriers and lack of local rules/market knowledge for example. It’s just simply not nice to feel ignorant or fooled by the bank mortgage specialist (I’ve been there, i know).
While it is a regulated market, bank will sometimes withhold information that could be beneficial to you. Here is a selection of what you should probably know about before you apply for a mortgage, and after too.
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Time has taken its toll on Berlin’s once famous affordable housing market. Like many other up and coming cities before (Paris in the 60’s, San Francisco in the 80’s, Brooklyn since the 90’s), the German capital’s attractive lifestyle has brought many newcomers wanting to have a piece of the pie too.
This has a triggered a sharp increase on the demand side in a city where landlords use to struggle to even find tenants ever since the end the beginning of the cold war. As result, rents have steadily been going up at rate that often goes faster than the average income. This is very concerning when in average, people spend 35% to 40% of their income on rent alone in Germany.
This impacts locals and expats alike but the good news are that there are ways to decrease your rent when the conditions are right. This takes a bit of courage and a bit of knowledge to pull off, but it is possible to fight back! Landlords will try to deny, to impress or to pressure you. However, the following ways to decrease your rent in Germany are perfectly legal. So put on your on best David suit, it’s time to fight again Goliath!
Some things in life have become so familiar to us that we don’t even question it. I’m thinking about queuing 2 hours for Berghain, waiting too long for a Döner at Mustapha’s or giving up on the idea of ever buying real butter (no margarine) at Lidl & Aldi. Those things exist and we won’t challenge them.
One could also say the same about how most of us define ourselves. The term probably comes up in your conversations once in a while back home or here. We are expatriates, expats part of the expat community.
But why exactly do we favor that term? Surely, as foreigners, if we left our countries in search of a better life abroad, should we not be immigrants? It would seem to make sense after all. So who is an expat? Who is an immigrant? What does that say about us? And is there a better way to call ourselves? These things have been in my head for a while now, and i will make my own attempt to try to answer to these questions.
In the past few years, there has been an abundance of new ways to learn a new language. Numerous apps are promising to make you speak a new language in only 2 weeks for example. (We all have seen that ad: “A normal guy learned 7 languages in just 1 year!”). This requires a lot of self-discipline, something we all too often lack.
To add a learning routine in a busy lifestyle and committing to it in the long-run is hard to do alone. That’s why a lot of us are still going to a good old-fashion language school. A motivating teacher and a bit of peer-pressure can sure do marvels to get from A1 to B2 in no time. We talked about language in schools in Berlin in this post but i have seen on Facebook groups and forums many questions on how to pick the right one.
I took those questions to one of the best language schools in Berlin to get some answers. This is what Sprachenatelier had to say about it:
Expats and locals alike have been experiencing the increasingly difficult challenge to find accommodation in Berlin the last few years, especially in the more central and trendy areas of the German capital. Alongside topics like gentrification & start-ups, housing capacity shortage has been in everyone’s conversations, which naturally lead to question the impact of short-term rental platforms like airbnb on the current situation. In other terms; how many flats are being repeatedly put for rent by owners as holiday rentals when they could be made available to local long-term tenants?
A first attempt at objectively measuring the extent of the problem in Berlin was made by Studio Karat through their dedicated website: airbnbvsberlin.de. Put together thanks to data provided by the platform itself, this allowed for a data-driven analysis of the situation.
On 01/05/2016, a new law was voted by the city Senate in an effort to limit the effect of such platforms onto the long-term local housing market. Named “Zweckentfremdungsverbot” (law against misappropriation of housing space), this regulation threatens anyone who puts an entire flat* for rent with the intent of generating profit with a fine up to 100 000€ per violation. Any commercial exploitation has to be sanctioned with a special permit from the city. This move received acclaim from many local actors who saw the end of abusive listings. However, since this law passed, we can still see many listings on airbnb up to this date.
It is therefore quite interesting to again have a look at the data today, and the story it tells us: did the new law have the desired effect of reducing unwanted listings?
Studio Karat released another data-driven study on their blog and gives us a few clues on the answer.
Following-up with my nonsensical* exploration of Hamburg as a good candidate for your expat life in this post, we look today at why Hamburg might offer more stable situations for their inhabitants and how its environments improves quality of life.
