Buying a House in Germany | 6 Important Things You Need to Consider First

If you are thinking about buying a house or real estate property in Germany, you should start by making up your mind about what kind of home you actually can afford to buy. Housing prices aren’t cheap, so finding the right budget will be your first big task.

Take a look at these 7 tips to successfully investing in real estate here in Germany, it’ll help a ton! 

Like looking for a rental property, there are many great online resources to find your dream house.

Of course, the remaining steps that follow aren’t always easy either, so we invited Max Karänke, Founder and Expert at Karänke Immobilien, to write this step-by-step guide to help guide you when you’re thinking of buying a house in Germany.

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Once you’ve established a budget, you’re ready to move on. First, you’ll need to consider the various options: House or apartment? New or used building? Purchase or construction of a new house with a plot?

Step 1: What kind of property can you really afford?

The most important thing to consider before buying a house or building a property in Germany, is: what you can really afford? You’ll need to compare your loan/credit options and see how much money you’ll really need before settling on a house. Knowing how to get a mortgage in Germany will be one of the single most important steps to buying a house and saving money.

You should consider, that in addition to the pure acquisition costs you will have expenses like:

• the property transfer tax
• notary fees
• registration fees
• and a possible broker’s commission

These additional costs can easily sum up to 10 percent of the pure purchase costs of the real estate. And if you want to buy and rebuild a used building or apartment, almost always unexpected events occur, which leads to additional costs.

Here are 5 tips for getting home financing in Germany!

Step 2: Do you prefer a house or an apartment?

When you have made up your mind on how much money you really want to spend, the next important question is, do you want to buy a house or a condominium? 

Houses with a garden are perfect for families with children. They offer a protected space, where small children can play right next to the house in the open air. But before and after founding a family, or if you follow other life models, buying a house might not be the most suitable option for you and your family. Often the condo is the preferred option (and can often be a more affordable option).

Step 3: New construction or existing buildings?

Do you want the honest truth? It is nearly impossible for you to carry out a defect-free construction of a new building. A used house that is sold by a private owner can often be a better solution. To find a real estate firm in Düsseldorf that’s really worth the price, you should carefully check the internet for real estate firms around the city. If you want to Google Search a list of the best real estate firms, try searching for a term like “Immobilienmakler in Düsseldorf”.

Of course, Karänke Immobilien can also help you with this too! (this is our real estate firm)

Real estate buyers and bargain hunters in Düsseldorf, who buy real estate in a hurry, are always buying at very high risk. You should never only lookout for the cheapest property in Düsseldorf, but look for someone who is selling a house in Düsseldorf that is really worth its price. For renting or buying a house in Düsseldorf you should always thoroughly examine the prices from different owners or real-estate agents.

Step 4: Save the purchase of a used real estate

In Düsseldorf, like in the whole of Germany, the dominant part of the real estate offers consist of used buildings and apartments. These used objects are usually bought “as is“. Therefore, a meticulous inspection is important for recognizing whether there are any problems that might reduce the value or even lead to a total loss of value of the real estate. Search the phrase “Baugutachter” if you would like to find a professional to inspect the place before buying.

If you want to acquire a used property in Düsseldorf and have already gone through careful inspection, you will also have to make sure to get a well-balanced sale contract that provides the basis for a safe and secure purchase. In Germany, the execution of this contract is carried out by a notary (here’s a great list of Düsseldorf notaries in English). Such a notarized purchase of a real estate is practically irreversible.

Step 5: Purchase of a new property with a plot

When you buy a new property including a plot – normally by a property developer -, in most cases the construction will have not even begun. In the case that you buy a property that has not yet been built, the description of the planned building and services becomes part of the purchase contract, which must be notarized.

Unfortunately, building specifications in Germany used to be of very poor quality, and to this day, there are still only very few minimum requirements for building specifications. Since there is nobody who checks a building specification for a property that has not yet been built, you’ll have to do that yourself. But, if you don’t come from a professional background of building inspections, this can be quite difficult. In this case, the building specification should be checked externally before you sign the contract.

Step 6: Construction of a house on your own property

If you acquire an undeveloped plot of land, you have the possibility to build a new house on your own property. In this case, in Germany, you become a builder-owner and have many special responsibilities. Now you can choose to build your new home together with a real architect or to buy it from a provider of turnkey houses.

You should know that providers of turnkey houses have a lot of free-range to develop their contracted designs. This can often lead to extremely dangerous payment plans, with early, very high payment rates, that are not justified at all by the actual construction progress and which entail enormous risks for you. On the other side, turnkey offers can also allow you to buy a “ready-made house”. Sometimes you can visit your future house before the actual construction has started, as a show or model house or as a reference object.

If you build your new house in Düsseldorf together with an architect, you should have a specialist at the construction site on a regular basis. But, if you build turn-key with a prefabricated house or a solid house supplier, you will only have the building company on the construction site, and no independent expert to overlook the building process.

Looking for more information on buying your first home in Düsseldorf? Feel free to contact Max Karänke and the team at Karänke Immobilien for more information!