Berlin has a new favourite pastime: being surprised by Berlin. According to the Senate department and Berlin.de, the Berlin Senate's rent inspection office, which has been running for about a year, has found numerous cases of excessive rents. Between April and December 2025 it checked 339 rents; 320 of them, or 94 per cent, were unlawfully above the local reference rent.
And that is not all: in 222 cases the rent was more than 50 per cent above the reference rent. That is the range where people stop saying "too expensive" and start talking about suspected rent extortion, which can be a criminal matter.
And that is not all: in 222 cases the rent was more than 50 per cent above the reference rent.
Strictly speaking, none of this is a surprise. Berlin is a city where housing is scarce, demand is high and creativity in pricing is legendary. What is new is that the administration is pursuing cases more systematically, in an accessible, advisory, investigative way, and producing figures that can no longer be waved away as isolated cases.
The real irony: an inspection office proves the existence of problems everyone already knew about. But as soon as the problems are counted, they suddenly become political. Numbers have the awkward habit of assigning responsibility, and in the rental market responsibility is rarer than an old-building lease without surprises.
What to watch next
Whether the suspected cases lead to actual refunds or rent reductions, and how consistently this is enforced.
Whether the office gets more staff or structure if case numbers keep rising.
Whether landlords and platforms visibly change their behaviour, or just their wording.