How to rent an apartment or house in Germany (4)

What to do when going house hunting in Germany...

and what not to do

If you are being relocated to Germany or move all out of your own, you have three ways of doing your home search:

• Going on your own or with friends
• Hiring a relocation agency
• Contact a rental agent or broker to assist you

If you go on your own or with the help of friends you have several ressources you can try. If you use any search engine, try for "Mieten Frankfurt" or "Mieten Oberursel" or "Mieten Dreieich" for example. Most pages you will find will be in German. Using Google translation machine might help you. Normally the contact person will be given in the ad, or a form to use for replying. And now comes the specialty: If the person at the other end does not speak or write English, they might very well not reply at all. Do not try to communicate via Google translator! Latest at the point when it comes to fine tuned details the non-english speaking agent will give up. He might not even bother to assist you further via the translation machine. 

Therefore, our first recommendation is: Contact people whom you can talk to in your own language or at least, in English. You will need to have more help than just a short reply to a search, and that is best in your own language. 

If you choose to go with a relocation agency you are pretty well off. They will do the market search and arrange the appointments and also negotiate the rental contract, will translate it for you and assist in the actual moving process. In and around Frankfurt are numerous relocation companies, and we as AllGrund agency cooperate with them since over a decade successfully. 

If you decide to go with a real estate agent like us and entrust him with your home search, watch that he or she will do the full service for you. I.e. the home search package like that which a relocation agency would prepare: hunting on the market, arranging visits and accompanying you in the process of negotiating and interpreting the contract. That means he must be fully english speaking. If you are of other native language (like Japanese or Corean or Chinese) there are respective agencies who speak your native language and may be of good assistance.

House visits

You might more often than not be part of a "house visit party" where several interested clients come at the same time. Don't be annoyed by this; it is kind of normal in a small town with a tight market like Frankfurt. But in recent years the market has become more relaxed and individual meetings have become more common. If you happen to enter a "party" and you really have the feeling it is the right place to rent, tell your agent or the landlord or landlady immediately at the visit that you are strongly interested to rent the object. Good or excellent apartments may be gone after a day or even same day sometimes. (Same applies by the way when searching to buy.)

If you have a more relaxed tour take the time to search the neighborhood. A fast impression can be gotten if you look what type and quality of houses are around, how neat and clean the letterboxes are arranged, what type of cars are parket in the area, and generally, what facilities and traffic connections for public transport are nearby. Schooling of your children may be an issue as well in the decision where to rent; and if the question is shall we live close to your work place or close to the school (and sometimes they can be many miles apart), always give preference to the school.

Having decided for a house or apartment, immediately start going into contract negotiation and arrangements. You will need to present the following documents:

The so-called Selbstauskunft: disclosure of informations about yourself. This is a basic information form which requests data about you, your family (names and age), how many persons will live in the property and for how long you plan to rent, who is your employer and - what is your income. The last point is sensitive as you may be in an obligation not to disclose data about your earnings. In this case get a letter from your employer to show a landlord confirming that your income is suffiently high to pay a rent at a range up to ... €. Also it helps if your company confirms your security of employemnt; just whatever can confirm a landlord that you will be a reliable tenant.

Copies of passports (needed to prepare the contract)

Employment contract copy (sensitive! Make sure you are allowed to hand it out; otherwise handle as above in Selbstauskunft. For the landlord the main statement is the length planned for your employement period in Germany.

Schufa-Auskunft: The Schufa is a German credit rating company. It will not apply if you did not live in Germany before. But it may help if you provide anything similar from a credit rating company from your home land. It is most of the time not crucial, though.

How to negotiate rent amount

Normally rents for apartments are not negotiable. For larger objects like houses they might be, depending on the market. Don't press too much. German landlords very often are feeling offended when pressed hard or impolitely with regards to the rent, and just reject to take you as tenant. If you work with an agent, it might help to let him do the negotiations.

When to sign

A good rule of thumb is: Get the issue off the table as fast as possible. Yes, get familiar with the terms of contract. But you will not be able to learn all about German rental law within a day or two. In general, landlords use a standard form contract; in some cases landlords have their own draft and especially when landlords use their own text draft, have it checked carefully by your relocation agent or a lawyer in your company who is familiar with the subject. 

What you shouldn't do

There are only a few things that come to mind when thinking of what should not be done. One of these is being late for appointments. German people unfortunately have something with "always being on time", and that is very much by the minute. Not too early and not too late. But as traffic and other circumstances can hold you up, always be polite and call your next meeting partner. For that it is necessary to have their mobile number at hand; so if you arrange an appointment ask for their mobile number for "just in case"....Many landlords do not live where the rental object is located, some come over from far away and it is good to stay in contact when traffic jams or whatever happens.

Don't criticize. Ask whatever you want to ask about the apartment or house, its technical installations, the age of the heating system and the amount of extra costs. But be polite and friendly. German landlords sometimes may look a bit irritated when you ask too much, however. Just look and see. Ask your partner or agent. Let him decide how many questions to ask at the beginning.

Good hunting! 

For your rental search you can use the form below the picture.