2023-04-27 19:05:02
Deutschland
Rent in this housing estate costs less than one euro per year
The Fuggerei in Augsburg is the oldest social settlement in the world. Anyone who thinks of unkempt, ugly blocks of flats is completely wrong.
published
Contemplative, well maintained and super cheap: the apartments in the Fuggerei in Augsburg.
IMAGO/Volker Preußer
Entrance gate of the Jakob Fugger settlement: The gates here are locked at night – so nobody can come in from the outside.
IMAGO/imagebroker
Bust of Jakob Fugger, the founder of the Fuggerei. He was one of the super rich of the 16th century.
IMAGO/imagebroker
The houses in the settlement are under monument protection. Also interesting: The ceilings are much lower than usual today, because people 500 years ago were much smaller than today.
IMAGO/imagebroker
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Rents are rising everywhere, except in the Fugger settlement in Augsburg.
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88 cents rent and three prayers a day – that’s the price you pay to live there.
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The Fuggerei was built in 1516, making it the oldest social housing in the world.
Housing has not only become a luxury item in Switzerland, people in Germany are also groaning under the high rents. The rule of thumb of spending a maximum of 30 percent of your salary on rent including heating often no longer works for people – especially in the big cities.
One way of helping people with very low incomes in particular is social housing. The rents there are many times lower than on the free housing market. But they are probably not as cheap as in the Fuggerei in Augsburg in Bavaria. Because the rent is 88 cents per year, excluding ancillary costs and 88 cents for the settlement’s own pastor, probably unbeatable. The “Focus” reports on this in its current issue.
Founded 500 years ago
How is it possible that people can live at this price? The answer is simple: the Fuggerei belongs to a foundation that was established 500 years ago by Jakob Fugger, a very wealthy Augsburg businessman. At the end of the 15th century, Fugger was the most important merchant, mining entrepreneur and banker in Europe.
He probably had the Fuggerei built for image reasons. Poor craftsmen and day laborers were allowed to live here – for at that time one guilder and three prayers a day (Our Father, Creed, Ave Maria). The same criteria set out in the foundation deed still apply today. Nobody checks whether you really pray, but at least on paper you have to be Catholic.
An investment banker runs the foundation
Today, more than 150 people live in the Fuggerei, above all “financially needy families, single people and couples from Augsburg who, despite work, pension or social benefits, cannot keep up on the ‘normal’ housing market,” as the foundation writes on its website. It is financed without any public subsidies, but only from the foundation’s own assets. The foundation’s own forest brings in the most money.
Admission to the Fuggerei is also profitable: it costs eight euros and around 220,000 visitors come every year. The foundation, or rather the family senior board, is managed by a descendant of Jakob Fugger himself. Alexander Erbgraf Fugger-Babenhausen (41), like his ancestor, is also a banker. He has ambitious plans for the foundation: to establish the concept of super-social housing internationally as well.
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