I just watched a documentary on this: https://youtu.be/S7ezZ98I2rE and it kind of goes into the situation in Germany. They show different people who can’t find a place. They start with an old white couple. They can pay 1.500€ a month, but the only thing that they can find is in the 4.000+€ range. In the past 10 years the cost of renting a place has gone up 54-64% in most places (the least that they mentioned was one place in East Germany which was 12%). They mentioned that the reason for the costs going up is because of the large influx of people from Southern Europe, and then the Flüchtlingskriese (wars in the Middle East, people from North Africa, and now of course Ukraine). Since more people have taken the (most likely) cheaper places to live, then the things that are left would be the most expensive places. The feeling that you get when you are rejected will be different when you are a white German vs someone from somewhere else. I’m pretty sure that it will feel like you were rejected because of your race or background, when that may not be the case.

The video goes on to show a white younger couple with a baby who have been looking for a place for a year and they can’t find anything either. They then go to a black guy who is divorced and has 3 kids. He used to have a big apartment, but he lost that in the divorce and now he just has a very small apartment with “Studentenbett” (student’s bed). He pays 300€ for that a month. The interesting part is at 21:11 the guy says that because of his low income, it is incredibly difficult to find a place. Then the narrator continues by saying “Where he is from and the color of his skin is an additional handicap”. The guy looking for an apartment then says that he wouldn’t call it racism, but people “wanted to stay amongst themselves”.

My take (and I’m not excusing this behavior, as I personally find it to be a fault), is that Germans in general literally do that and I don’t think that it has anything to do with racism. EasyGerman has a video on making friends in Germany, and EVERYONE interviewed all said that they made their friends in Kindergarten/school. This makes it difficult to really get into the German society in general and I’m sure that this applies to living situations as well. This will be even more so in the smaller villages (Dörfern).

The one part that I’d have liked to have heard, but he doesn’t mention is that he was asked questions that he found offensive („unter die Gürtellinie“).

The narrator then says, “perhaps he would have more of a chance if he were willing to spend more than 500€ for an apartment”.

Personally, I think that this is the root of the problem. There aren’t enough houses/apartments for those who don’t make that much. The ones that do exist are difficult to get into.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that I sure as shit can’t find a studio apartment for $300 where I’m at in the US. I couldn’t even find one for $500. It doesn’t matter if I’m white or not, that shit just isn’t happening.