The situation on the rental market in German cities – what do you need to know?

Finding an affordable rental apartment in Germany isn't all that easy—in many major cities, it's now extremely difficult. This is especially true if you don't speak German and aren't familiar with the "rules" for applying and viewings. The search is further complicated by the 2015 amendment to the Real Estate Agents Act (Bestellerprinzip): Since then, the person who hired the agent—and that's usually the landlord—must pay the agent. Unfortunately, this financial relief for the tenant—who, before this change in the law, usually had to pay two months' rent plus VAT to an agent hired by the landlord—doesn't have all its positive aspects.

What exactly are these effects? Many landlords are now trying to avoid the broker's commission and rent out their properties on their own. However, because they don't want to constantly provide information about their rental property over the phone, they often place rental advertisements on relevant portals such as Immobilienscout24.de or immonet.de, which can only be responded to via email. Anyone who doesn't speak German is basically at a disadvantage. For sought-after apartments, landlords receive several hundred inquiries for such advertisements. To make things easier, the landlord can afford to ignore inquiries from foreign prospective tenants. A minimum rental period of two to three years is also increasingly being required and stated in the rental agreements. Getting out of these contracts early is usually difficult. Even if the landlord has hired a broker—and now usually pays them a lower broker's commission of one month's rent—they are increasingly using the broker to find tenants they believe are likely to stay in the apartment longer. After all, they don't want to have to hire the broker to rent the property again after just one year.

And if you've still managed to receive an invitation to a viewing appointment? Then you have to distinguish between two fundamentally different options: the individual viewing appointment and the group viewing appointment. Especially for inexpensive, smaller apartments with many interested parties, both owners, property managers, and real estate agents prefer group viewing appointments. If you receive an email response to an inquiry inviting you to such an appointment, you've at least cleared the first hurdle. You'll then see how many other applicants there are on-site: Anything from 10 to 50 interested parties is possible. You'll usually have up to 30 minutes to view the apartment, ask questions, and submit your documents. There's a lot you can do right here. Or a lot you can do wrong! Read here how you can increase your chances of getting the apartment on-site: Discrimination on the German housing market?

If there are individual viewing appointments, which are rather rare for affordable and/or sought-after apartments, you'll already be part of a relatively small group of applicants – usually no more than 10 such appointments are granted. You can also learn how to increase your chances of being invited to a viewing, whether in a group or individually, here: Discrimination on the German housing market? By the way, at an open viewing appointment advertised on the internet portals, there can be 100 or more interested parties lining up at the door to view the apartment. As a foreigner, your chances of success here are minimal. In our opinion, you can actually save yourself the time of attending such viewing appointments. Unless, of course, you want to "practice" for the worst-case scenario. Which we definitely recommend. 

What you can also do to significantly increase your chances of success is to involve a relocation agency like PROGEDO. We have been operating successfully in many cities nationwide for 25 years and have already found thousands of apartments for our clients – and supported more than 15,000 expats in their search. Because we enjoy an excellent reputation with many real estate agents, property managers, and owners, we often receive offers for apartments before they are even published online. This is also, of course, because we do not act as real estate agents ourselves and therefore do not incur any costs for the landlord or the companies commissioned by them. Furthermore, we are always up to date with the latest developments in the residential rental market. Our employees know exactly which levers to pull and how much persuasion they need to do to increase our clients' chances of being invited to a viewing appointment. And, of course, of then being allowed to sign the rental agreement. You benefit from this, too.