Considering buying a house near Bernkastel-Kues

Hello ToyTownGermans,
Currently I live in Guildord, UK and am thinking about buying a house near Bernkastel-Kues. Family is happy to move, present job allows to work remotely/travel to sites around Europe.
I wonder how is life in this part of Pfalz, especially schools (I have 5-y.o. child) and jobs for young people (another child is 23.y.o. and dropped out of Uni)?
Also, does one always pay asking price for a German property or is it common to start with low offer and then improve it? If the latter how much below asking price is considered typical?
Appreciate any advice/comments/rant/warnings

"Appreciate any advice/comments/rant/warnings"

Warning......the majority of the members are not "ToyTownGermans" as you put it. I suspect you will get the information you are hoping for but please remember this is a forum for English speaking ex-pats in Germany. Good luck.

Bernkastel-Kues is not part of the Pfalz ... after WWII the southern part of the former Prussian Rhine Province was artificially "united" with the former Bavarian Palatinate by the French occupation administration

If you are all settled in Guildford, what on earth makes you want to move over here, and to a place that you apparently don´t even know????
My best suggestion is that you get your backside over here and check out the place yourself and see if you think that you and your family would enjoy living here.
do any of you speak German? - it could be an advantage!
Anyway, if you then still feel it would be a good idea, I suggest you rent a place here - Germans rent, it´s only really the English who see money paid in rent as wasted money :-)
- but renting would initially give you the flexibility to decide to move to somewhere else here, or even back to sunny old Guildford!

I am not at all settled in Guildford. Settling here requires income north of GBP100K p.a., far more if one has non-working partner and children. Been royally ripped off in the UK more than once. When I've been to Germany, I always got what I paid for.
Thanks, been to Stuttgart, Cologne and Berlin, all are pricey for me so natural choice was cheaper place like Pfalz. www.immopool.de has lovely price index and charts
Not yet. Though I speak English and another European language, will learn German.
Of course. I would imagine paying 2xmonthly rent+German VAT to a greedy makler for just moving into rental place is not wasting money at all.
Guildford is sunny for ultra-rich only. BTW, Guildford as a whole is 3rd richest English town in terms of per-capita income (after Windsor and St.Albans) but Bellfields (North Guildford) is 3rd most deprived area in Surrey.

Hello Alex98,
Bernkastel-Kues is a beaútiful place. Houses are alot cheaper here. There are a few other web-sites which will help you even more if you are interested. Work is seasonal here or short contract with agencies. Failing that most people travel to larger towns to find work. Life is a slower pace on the Mosel. My advise would be to come here in winter for a week or two, see as many houses as possible and get as much info to take back with you. There are good links back to the UK via Hahn and Ryanair, motorways,railways etc. Maybe it would be an idea to rent first. If you need any further info let me know...all the best from the sunny Mosel

It's in Rheinland Pfalz- I assume that's what the poster meant.

Are you telling us now that you are in Bellfields, or in guildford?
I know the area well.
Anyway, as I mentioned, go for renting a place or you might be stuck somewhere you find you really do not want to be, and more tied down than you are used to being

I live near Bernkastel-Kues and I work in property but don't let that put you off. There are few more despised professions on Toytown than "Immobilienmakler", but fortunately that's not what I do. Answers to your questions:
Life here is fine, with low housing cost, low general cost of living, clean air and good wine. It may not be so good for your 23 years old as he/she will almost certainly have serious difficulty finding employment unless he/she already has excellent language skills. Not having finished the course means being classified as unskilled here. "University standard" counts for nowt. Schools are in a state of flux. The 5 y.o. would be go to the Grundschule, probably when 6 years old and would probably learn quickly. Education is not well funded and you'll probably be surprised at how much you have to contribute to books etc. I have a 13 y. o. at the Gymnasium in BKS. In my daughter's school it's moot whether or not they'll get Chemistry and Physics this year as there's no teacher. With one or two exceptions in the region the schools are run by the R. C. Church, as are many other institutions in the region.
The house ? The area's depressed where housing's concerned so start low. Don't be too hasty to cut a deal as there's a real surplus of available property. Make it clear that's your only offer and it's a take it or leave it basis for you. Moving 50 kms up the valley to the area around Zell you can probably shave another 20% off anything. Same applies moving inland to the Hunsrueck side of the valley. The area around Schweich does better because of it's proximity to Trier and Wittlich because it's a decent little town, with jobs and on the main line.
How much below asking price depends on too many factors to give a straight answer. Where is it ?

Hello hoare-spitall,
Thanks very much for your reply.
I found this house first because it is on rightmove too
http://www.immopool.de/ASP/Immo/Obj/ImmoExpose.asp?LASID=79659076&InetLfdNr=9487173
This one also looks attractive
http://www.immopool.de/ASP/Immo/Obj/ImmoExpose.asp?LASID=79659076&InetLfdNr=1302950
So how much lower to offer then? :-)

@robinson100,
No I don't live in Bellfields but my elder child went to Bishop Reindorp school there (now Christ College).
She was a real star there mainly because then this school was a dump with inept teachers (her maths teacher was ex-TV set assembler from Australia). It served her badly because she assumed everything is going to be easy-peasy onwards and missed a chance when she enrolled into 6th form at Godalming College.

Hello BA,

Good to see you on here again. Did Pete Fisk get in touch with you. I'll send you a PM over the next day or two. We never did get to meet up and i'm only rarely in Zell these days.

Alex98 - your links don´t work!
What sort of house were you looking at, and what price range?

Yes, sorry about that. I could not find a way to perm-link the immopool.de advert and rightmove advert got removed :-(
Anyway, here is the rightmove advert for a similar house in Zell http://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas-property/property-23662766.html
I am looking at >3 bed houses under EUR100K.

OK - I got to the property in Zell-Merl via Rightmove. Immopool showed only the main page.

I think I know where this house is, i.e. on the road out of Merl up to Grenderich. Most important thing for me is that I know the agent and she's very fair and very reliable. They're not all so good. She also avoids the rubbish so the house will be in reasonably good order without hidden surprises. I'd need to check out the background in Merl before I'd make an assesment of what I think they'd go down to. There's always about 10% possible. Knowing who it is I'd be surprised if there was more. Without knowing more I'd say bottom line would be around 85K. The question is do they need to sell or can they sit on it. If it's really where I think it is then I'd definitely view before building up hopes. The road up to Grenderich is really idyllic but just too quiet for some folk. I know 2 Brits down the road have houses there and organised a sale for a Dutchman.

The easiest way to keep track of the objects on immopool is to click on the "exposé" button and the note the pdf link that comes up. Like this:

http://www.immopool.de/PDF/Temp/Expose9515123_02.pdf

I assume you're looking at the German version. They also operate estatepool for the English-speaking market but there most of the entries are very thin as the agents have to put the English text in themselves.
The other agent's married to a Scotsman