Buying a family house south-east of Munich

Dear All,
May I introduce myself . I am new to TT and and would really like to ask for your advice. We are living in Dublin and currently considering moving to the area south of Munich in the next six months. The husband has family connections here and I have lived in Germany for several years in my twenties (long gone alas) so it is not too much of a culture shock. We have three young children. We typically spend a lot of holidays here so I have a rough familiarity with the area around Landkreis Miesbach.
We are looking for a largeish family house with some sort of garden if possible and are considering buying. I realise this will have to be in the surburbs. So far we have seen only two developments of new houses, one in Bad Toelz and one in Holzkirchen. Of the two, the Holzkirchen one is more expensive but the overall development site is quite compact and crowded. On the plus side it is close enough to the S-Bahn. The BT one is in the area vacated by the US army and seems quite nice with lots of sports places and the mountains etc nearby.
I am not familiar enough with either area to know which is the best area for us. Obviously the house itself is only one aspect, I am also thinking of schools and other family-friendly organisations/resources such as creches etc. Coming from the boom building site (soon to implode) that is Dublin, the prices here look attractive but I dont have a feel for the housing market here yet, so I have no idea if the prices that the Makler is asking are realistic or if there is room for negotiation, or anything else for that matter. In fact I am finding it pretty difficult to find comparative online information on new housing developments at all - we stumbled upon the two that we have viewed through word-of-mouth only. (In Dublin it is relatively to get speedy info on new developments online, with prices, plans etc). So I have a few questions if anyone could kindly help me out.

Firstly where is a good area to buy a house and bring up kids in the area south-east of the city out as far as Bad Toelz or such?
Where could I then find information on new largeish houses? By large I mean anything of 140qm and above (I have lived with the family in a smaller house in Dublin city and by heck if we're moving then it will only be to a larger place..).
Is it worth buying at all, or should we forget the plan and just go for renting? I mean will we be looking at ANY capital appreciation over the short term, say the next five years. As an Irish person I am genetically programmed to loath renting, we like to be master of our four walls and truth be told, the rental market over there - although improving- is still considered to be primarily for students and temporary types.

I am quite taken with the idea of living here with the (for us) advantages of fresh air, sporty activities, much lower cost of living relative to where we're coming from, less crime (every night at home I go around and double-check the alarm is on even though we live in a respectable middle-class area, a practice which the husband initially found very bizarre until eventually he acclimatized. The two car break-ins helped..), and better and speedier health-care. If bird flu hits we are on the next plane out of Dublin, along with half the population I suspect.

On the other hand I'm slightly worried about a few aspects of moving: namely:
-the educational system. Where we are currently, two of our three kids aged 5 and 7 have been in the local primary, uniformed, relatively-disciplined Catholic school since the age of four and are doing very well. They are whacking along with the three Rs. Their eventual secondary school (from age approx 12 yrs) is within our cachement area, is considered to be very good and is thankfully non-fee paying (this is becomig a big deal in Dublin where fee paying secondary school are all becoming all the middle-class the rage and horrifying expensive). I am wondering if we should stick our kids in the local German school system (they speak some German and are young enough to pick it up quickly), or if we should look at the Intl school in Starnberg. I don't know what this costs though (can anyone advise?) . I have heard that it is expensive. I have to put the 3 kids through school so it will be their fees x 3 I suppose if we went down that route.
-The other area I'm woried about is harder to articulate and is around losing contact with family and friends and the 'local environment' for want of a better word, by this I mean the sense of humour and 'familarity' of life in a particular place. OK, It is definitely hard to articulate. Obviously we would travel over and back a bit and have family etc come to visit but I know from living here earlier that this is not quite the same thing. When I returned to Ireland after living in Germany for seven years (admittedly I didn't have a family with me then) it took me about a year to feel that I fitted in properly again. Does anyone know what I mean?
I'm also (not mentioning this one too loudly to the husband) not too wild about the idea that my kids will become sort of 'overtaken' by the German side of the family... They are wonderful people, no question (I married a good 'un) but selfishly I like the fact that my Irish side of the family has sort of primary hierarchy/familarity-hold with my kids. Is this a terrible thing to admit to? (on the plus side my lot can easily outnumber the in-laws, which is something I suppose...).

Anyhow I've rambled off topic a bit or rather I've put in a lot of questions that probably should go eslewhere in a forum, but if anyone could help me with my questions, given your experiences here I would be really grateful, delira' and excira' as they say in parts of the Fair City.
Many thanks, hopeful of some responses, yours

WriterD

Advertisement link: Homeproviders Germany - English-speaking estate agents

Hi WriterD,

I PMed you a response as it was too long to post here. However, here's the book I mentioned. It is probably useful to anyone considering buying a place in Munich or in the surrounding areas.

Immobilienführer München

It describes the different areas and regions of Munich - the cost, amenities, transport, general description of the area, building projects going on there, statistical and market analysis of the trends etc.

I grew up in the southeast of Munich, still within the Sbahn connection and i know the area around Miesbach a little bit.
it is a very rual and pretty area especially its proximity to the mountains and i would think life is quiet and family friendly there.
as to schooling, if you pick the german system, you are taking about country-side school which are very different to munich schools. i would assume that the schooling is better as the environment is not city-like.

I'll just address a couple of your questions.

I would re-think a commute from Bad Tolz to work in Munich for several reasons. 1. the traffic jams are bad - although there is the regional-bahn alternative, the commute would still take a chunk of your (or husband's) life. 2. the ex-pat community is a lot smaller out there. You may feel very isolated.

You're right to worry about raising your kids German-centric or Irish-centric for lack of better terms. If you raise them here, this will be home to them and you may someday be stuck with the excruciating decision of do I 'ruin' my kids' life by taking them back to Ireland, or do I resign myself to staying here. If your marriage were to end, they could decide to stay with Dad because this is now 'home'. On the upside, they've probably been speaking English long enough now not to drop the language at home.

The German schools are not great. They're not awful, but really mediocre and very under-funded. Starnberg is way too far from where you want to live, and it's prohibitively expensive if you aren't rich or the company won't pay for it. What you can do is send them to German school and budget for tutors.

Germany is a pretty nice place to raise kids though, all in all. It's very safe and the other kids are generally pretty nice and well brought up. That is worth a lot.

If you'd like to know more about MIS you can go to their website (Munich International School): it's all there, including information about the fees. Here is the link to the page setting out their fee schedule for 06-07. Are you still with us or have you fainted?

Personally, if I intended to settle down in Germany and had very young children, which seems to be your case, I'd send them to German school.

i know it's off topic, but

doesn't that issue come with the nature of the relationship? if i were to leave germany with a ie french partner to start a family in france, i am taking the risk that my children are more french than german. or the other way around. unless you are somewhere neutral, there is always the 'risk' (not sure i like that word here) that the children are more inclined to one country.

Seems like a strange thing to be concerned about, but you do realise that the bird flu has already hit Germany?

Also, in regards to buying a house, you'd probably be better off to rent for a while until you know what is going on. As you say, house prices really don't move over here like they do in the UK or Ireland, so there is no reason to rush and buy something.

I've sent a long PM...

er, yeah I was a bit thrown by the bird flu reference too. I think there was a case near Bad Tölz actually

I also agree with the previous post by Kat. Particularly with regard to the school situation here. The locals here are used to the system, the've grown up/put up with it.

Whatever you do next, make sure you really do your research and understand how the school system here works, because I'm sure its going to be quite different from what you are used to in Ireland.

I would also be careful about moving over here for family reasons or because of nice holiday memories, mountains etc...

The reality is daily life with your children, school issues, homework etc...

Sorry to sound negative

Agreed. I'm aware that birds can fly but even so I think that in case of a major outbreak Ireland would be a safer place to be than the continent.

I recommend Holzkirchen over Tölz as it has a very good connection to Munich. Nice place to live too.

Hi,
just a link, might be useful
http://www.muenchen.de/umweltatlas

Hi all, many thanks for all your replies and all the information in them. I am slowly digesting the information. I will make this a short one just for now and will write more later.
Just wanted to clear up the slightly oblique reference I made to bird flu. I am aware that it has arrived in Germany and so far has not got to Irish shores. What I was really getting at with this remark was a sort of shorthand for meaning that if a serious epedimic hits then I don't want to be dependent on getting medical help in Ireland. Those who have lived there will know that the medical system in in crisis. When you eventually get tended to by a specialist in a hospital the medical care is actually good - under normal conditions- but the major problem is in getting seen and diagonsed initially or triaged as I believe the call it. As an example I had to attend the A&E department of largest children's hospital in Dublin with my child with an undiagonsed virus, (having been sent there by my doctor with an emergency letter to be seen immediately) . As soon as they deduced that it was not Meningitis we had to wait eight hours on a plastic chair in a draughty corridor before we were further seen by a doctor. (I'm not complainig too loudly as obviously I was so relieved that it was not life-threatening). A similar less serious virus sent us to a local clinic in the Miesbach area last year, we were in and out and medicated in 15 minutes. The waiting lists and lack of beds in the Accident and Emergency departments are truly scary, to the point that the nurses union compiles a daily hit list of how many patients in each hospital are kept waiting for days and nights on stretcher-eds or even chairs before being looked after. The disgraceful state of the medical system is one of the major topics for the upcoming national elections.
From what I have seen here and previous experience of living here, it has not come to this pretty pass here yet. Therefore my hope that should a manjor epidemic appear,, one would have a better chance of getting some sort of medication in German than in Ireland.

So, apologies for the shorthand, I will explain more then next time. All the bestWriterd

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm but in Germany too the quality of medical care sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. If you want to see what TTers have to say on the subject - good and bad - do a search for terms like "hospital experiences", "doctors", "dentists", etc.

With regard to schools, I don't know if you already know that there is a private school in Holzkirchen (Grundschule and Gymnasium) which teaches English from the 1st class, and has English native-speaker teachers for subjects like maths, music and history. It is an all-day school and costs 250 Euros a month. If you chose to live in this area, you might want to look into it: http://www.ganztagsschule.de

House prices are expensive in Holzkirchen, due to its excellent rail & road connections into the city (motorway, BOB and S-Bahn) and its proximity to the mountains. Apart from that there are a lot of new companies sprouting up and existing ones expanding, so a fast-growing town, already with quite a large "ex-pat" community (Brits, Americans, Irish, French...). Holzkirchen should also be seeing quite a few changes over the next few years - apart from all the new housing estates, there are already plans for link-roads, a shopping centre and a big new kindergarten.

Hi all, Many thanks again for the considered replies.
Re the healthcare, I dont want to seem Pollyanna-like in my evangelism and am aware of the slimming down of the generous German health system in recent years but I'm still willing to bet good money that the German health system is stilll streets ahead than the Irish one. In Ireland where I work and pay 42% of my salary in direct taxes as well as copious amounts in ever-increasing, cunning stealth taxes, and where I also pay shedloads for private health insurance, I pretty much quake at the though that we should hove into view in any A&E department and require treatment. I don't think that in that respect I differ too much from any of my contemporaries here. However, not to be too pessimistic, we are all fighting fit at present in the family, and long may it last.

Thanks for the info on Holzkirchen, especially the schools there. From my somewhwat cursory and speedy inspection it does appear to be a bit of a happening town right now, although would it be fair to say that it is not the prettiest? Also, my impression is that any new housing developments, even for one-family-houses there are fairly high densityi, is this a rule now prescribed by the local council? I am assuming it is.

With three lively kids I am looking for a bit of space, both in the house and in the garden.
Where I currently live in Dublin is fine and dandy, a standard 3-bedroomed 1920s semi-detached for those UK and Irish readers familiar with the genre. As is typical in the Klondike-type of gold rush market here where a well-located postbox -requiring loving refurbishment- costs over E900,000, we have extended and revamped to beat the band. However a pint into a quart pot just won't go, or whatever the saying is. Forgive the lack of linguistical syntax but I've just drunk 2 glasses of red wine, having this evening taken the late flight back from Munich to Dublin with the family and returned to an airport heaving with jolly and inebriated English male supporters fortifying themselves for the massive rugby match tomorrow against Ireland in Croke Park, all well and good but resulted in a taxi queue of an hour and a half. (Croke Park, third largest and spiffiest sports stadium in Europe, did I mention? Same was until last month, despite being financed partly by the public purse to the tune of 20 Million E's including my own obligatory contribution, shockingly unavailable for 'foreigh games' other that the games of the motherland; Gaelic Football and camogie (this latter is a sort of girls sport mix of hockey and lacrose, although speedier and somehow deadlier than both). But now all is sweetness and light and the big games of rugby and possibly soccer can be allowed onto the hallowed turf. )

Apologies, I have digressed a lot. What I wanted to say was that we have extended the house etc etc but we are stuck at about 130 qm which despite built-in storage all over the house is too small for the growing family(currently numbering five in total and in my mind definitively stopped at that..). Although my own mother recently reminded my that generation of large families grew up in these houses with seemingly ever last man of them flourishing to become lawyers or doctors. Always the professions it was in these nostalgic parental lookbacks, never a crass commercial job such as the sort I've got. Anyhow...
So I am desperate for for space, man, both inside and out. And reluctant to consign myself to the boonies out in Kinnegad which is hicksville with a two to three hour commute required on a wet Monday morning (actual distance to the capital 48Km). But equally reluctant if not to say incapable of ponying up the approx. E1.3 million required to buy a slightly larger 4 bedroomed house near enough to the city but requiring total refurbishment to the tune of around E250-350,000, not to mention the daylight robbery that is the E120,000 obligatory stamp duty tax which the Government demandss. Yes folks it is REALLY REALLY expensive living and buying property in Dublin.
But as the plaintiff said, it's not just about the money m'lud. Its about reducing stress, living in an area not toally snarled up by traffic, with a functioning public transport system and a palpable sense of relaxation and enjoying life. dublin city life is becoming very intense, I imagine in my head that is is similar in ways to life my friends experience in London although obviously being very provincial by comparison. But for me there is the same sense of being driven, of showing what you have achieved, of going to the right schools, living in the right places, having the right sort of fashionable open-plan kitchen, paying the exorbitant creche fees. (apols to any Londoners who I may offend with this crass generalisation). I am going on a bit now so I shall stop. Not before however I imagine living near Munich is the nirvana, far from it, but there still appears to be the awareness of enjoying the great outdoors and an ability to relax that is disappearing if not unachievable in Dublin.

Hmm, It has belatedly occured to me that my portrayl of my home town might be seen as a tad negative and I am not doing my bit to further the national effort of helping to procuure visitors to our fair land. So in another mail I shall dwell on the many advantages, most of which are of interest to the large multinational looking for a sweet setup deal and a tax regime of only 12%, in addition to the 'well educated English-speaking workforce, of course shorthand for the 20-year old call centre fodder graduate who will initially happy with 16K per annum.
Thanks for reading my long and rambling text. I think I shall quit whilst still upright and ambulant and head for the bed.
WriterD

I would not rush to buy a house here if you have doubts since buying here only makes sense if you are going to stay here for a good few years. I don't know for definate but I would bet that selling a house in Dublin to buy here would loose you money. I would rent for a year or two first.

I'm sorry I don't have the time to devote to penning similar eloquent tomes, WriterD! No, really I am! I can barely manage to steal 5 minutes to tap a few hurried lines, with my one demanding child... unless of course having 3 is the secret as they keep one another entertained! Anyway, to answer your question: you're right, Holzkirchen isn't exactly a quaint picture-postcard town, but then it doesn't attract hoards of tourists either (only the ones who drive through en route to their holiday destinations and clog up the country roads when there are long tailbacks on the motorway!). Compared to the town I come from, I consider it a relatively quiet and sleepy town, at least it was when I came here 10 years ago. But now it seems to be waking up and shaping up! It is quite a sprawling town, but as of this month boasts its own little bus service! I say little because I think the bus only runs about twice a day, but, hey, it's a start! There are also plans to smarten the place up and make it more attractive, and action groups have been set up to make sure this happens.

As for the high-density housing areas, this is largely down to the gold-digger property owners who know they can line their pockets quickly and easily. Because of Holzkirchen's location, with good rail & road connections, it is a popular place to live. Housing developments are mushrooming, and it is not unusual to see homeowners suddenly building another house in their backgarden to rent out for a pretty penny. The same goes for older buildings and farmhouses being knocked down in favour of a row of terraced "rabbit hutches" or a small block of flats. It is sad because it has taken away the character of some spots that did have a charm of their own. That being said, there are a lot of nice housing areas in Holzkirchen with nice 1-family houses or semis, with adequate family gardens. You just need to know where to look!

If you have any specific questions, feel free to send me a PM! That's all from me for now - have to go and play with little Tigger!

Kay, I've now reached the link you provided detailing the fees for attendance at the MIS Starnberg. Strewth! They are astronomical! If I read all that stuff correctly it would cost me over E16,000 p.a. for each of my little nippers to go to school there. Maybe I read it wrong. No... went back and looked at it again and the numbers look just as large. I can hardly believe it.
As we would be footing the bills ourselves, a a hasty new plan is now called for, provisionally entitled Attending The local German School With a few Bob on the Side for English Tutors.

Tiger, I am sending you a PM re details of housing developments in Holzkirchen, I hope it gets to you. As I'm new to the forum I'm not toally sure I've mastered the PM thing and already I think I've PM'd other contributors and sent my PMs into thin air somewhere.
Best,
WriterD

Hi, I just found this website, it seems really useful
My husband and I are thinking of possible moving to Munich in the next couple of years from Canada, my main concern is the school, we would like to send our kids to the international school, but it is so expensive,
are there any other alternatives? Should we just get them German lessons?

We moved here (wife a 3 kids) 2 years ago from the UK and sent the kids to BIS, the international school in the North of Munich. We did review the MIS, but BIS was a bit smaller, more personal and (we thought) seemed to be a little less US dominated - not that I do not like Americans. Our experience has been largely positive. Incidentally a porportion of the kids at the school are German. I asked one parent of a German kid why they chose an International School and what followed was a long and sorry tail about the German education system. The straw that broke the camel's back for them was an incident where her son's teacher refered to him in class as 'the supidest boy I have ever met'. Incidentally he is a very bright boy who is doing well now at BIS. This is a sample group of one of course and may well not be typical. Good luck with your decision. Either way Munich is a fantastic place to bring up kids, mine absolutely love it here.

To jump in on the school issue...we were going to send our kids to BIS but without company support we couldn't afford it. Sniff, sniffle.

Our little girl started the first grade this year in Bergkirchen (a bit north of Munich.) I was really worried the first two weeks because they only learned how to spell two words, but I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the amount of stuff they are teaching the children. Bergkirchen is the first school to take the Pisa studies seriously and change their cirriculum. Since 2005 the vorshulekinder are taught Engish and English begins in the 1st grade. It used to start in the 3rd. (It annoys my daughter because all the kids ask her what the answers are, but there ya go.). The pricipal of the school is lovely and really cares about the children. Next year, the school system will also be opening a new "Hort" that will have extra homework help and a specialized learing program. It looks like it will be a second little school.

A nice thing about her being in the local school, is most of the kids in her class live in our village so she rides the bus with her friends, and has children to play with in the neighborhood. I nice bonus of not having to set up playdates and run all over Munich bringing her to friends houses!

My advice is, don't feel like you are ruining your children's chances of a great life if you can't afford to send your babes to the international schools. They certainly are in their own league and fantastic, but the German system is changing and I am rather impressed with what my daughter has learned this year.

On a separate note, the Germans are very very good when there are development delays with children. My little boy is developmentally behind and after dealing with the paperwork and beaurocracy, he will be sorted into an intergration kindergarten next year and have the specialized training he needs paid for by the gov't. It was a royal pain to get to this point, but after getting all of my ducks in a row, I've found a great place for him locally and he loves it.

Bavarrian Goddess. Hopefully your experience is more typical...I did say it was a sample group of one. What is Bergkirchen like to live in? It is one of the areas we have been considering for build / Buy.