Apartment hunting problems

I arrived in Munich from Dublin (Ireland) over a month and a half ago and I seem to have hit a brick wall in regards to apartment hunting. My self and my girlfriend have seen about 15 places in the past 2 weeks and have not been offered one (apart from one who was really taking the p!ss). We sat down this evening and were both thinking the same thing , "what are we doing wrong ??"

I'm hoping people here would be able to shed some light on this for us, and before you link all the news paper and rental sites , we know of nearly all of them. The only thing we haven't done and which we are trying to avoid is paying agency fee's which I think which are no better than mugging someone.

Here's a quick profile of us, please give an honest answer and tell me what you think might be the issue.

- Unmarried couple, together 6 and a half years
- Male 28 years old, Irish, employed in Munich for 1.5 months, €3200 pm take home salary.
- Female 30 years old, German (Bavarian native) , just arrived in Munich, interviewing for new job
- No children
- No pets
- Reference from previous landlord (for 3 years) in Ireland is glowing.
- Both non smokers

So far we haven't been that picky and have a fairly basic requirements, 1-2 bed apartment, central area , decent condition with / without furnishings.

Any tips or comments ??

Paying agency fees to get a flat might be the sour apple you have to bite into.
Yes, it's a lot of money for a dubious level of service, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

It can take time , but i would try and avoid paying fees as long as possible , its a waste of money for a very poor if at all existant service .

Who does all the talking? I'd suggest you let her talk first , if you don't already.

Try wohnungsboerse.net to avoid the Provisionen (the fees you pay will be far less than any Provision would be). Their physical address is right there on their homepage.

Good luck...

She does all the talking to be honest, my german is fairly basic. There has been occasions where the landlord could speak english and I spoke to them as well. We're not new to renting , I've rented in Dublin for 10 years and we rented a place in Dublin together for 3 years without any problems.

I think the fact that you are in Probezeit and your girlfriend doesn't have a job might be scaring off some landlords. You just seem like a risk, compared to the other people. Only thing I could suggest is that you perhaps stretch the truth about the length of your employment. Or even better, if it's the same company you were employed with before coming to Munich, give that as your length of time employed.

Try www.kijiji.de if you are looking for a provisionfrei wohnung.Through this site i got my apartment in Munich.All the Best for your search.

when i arrived here, i looked for about 2 months and visited about 35-40 flats before i found the one i'm in now. i also tried to avoid provision, but didn't rule out looking if the place seemed good. in the end, i was lucky enough to find one from a tenant who was looking for a nachmieter, and therefore no fees.

one thing i realized at the end of my search: i needed to up my budget. originally i was searching for 60-65sq m, 2-3 rooms, altbau, around 800-850 warm, glockenbach or nearby. it turns out EVERYONE is looking for this. you have young professionals, small families, and students all competing for the same place. when i started searching closer to the 1000 warm range, options opened up, and i wasn't waiting in queues to see the places.

of course you have to decide if that's worth it for you. for me, it helped end a very long and frustrating search.

If you have a large amount of savings, be sure to mention that if the landlords don't ask. That might help you overcome the Probezeit issue if the landlord is for whatever reason not impressed by your employment history with the same firm in Ireland (if indeed that is the case) or if you really are that new to your current firm.

I had a similar problem, but for me it was made worse by the fact that I am single and couldn't speak so much German, which meant that many landlords just think you are here for a few months and will then leave. It helped me to bring in my German employment contract which shows that I have a full time permanent job. Someone made a comment about your probezeit, this could also be an issue.

How much are you looking to spend? I think for a 2 room apartment for two people you could pay around €4-600 kalt depending on location, problem is so is every other flat hunter in Munich. I always noticed loads of apartments around the €1000 - 1200 mark as pointed out above, but this is a shit load of cash.

I would still try to avoid any agency fees and keep scanning things like Immobilian scout, I am sure there is a link somewhere, and also TT is a good place.

G'luck

The thing is at the moment I'm working as a contractor. I pay my taxes through my own company based in Ireland and contracted to a company based in London. That company has me based in their customers site in Munich. Sounds complecated, doesn't it ??

There might be some light at the end of the tunnel for us though, my girlfriend is supposed to hear back about a job interview she had today and sometime in the very near future I will be working directly for the company I am currently working in.

Not going to help our current situation though.

I'm currently in the postion of looking for somewhere but down in Rosenheim/Kolbermoor. I certainly rememeber the reaction when landlords heard an english voice last time we were looking and it was definatly a hinderance at times , which is why I mentioned it above. Although my Wife and I are going our separate was she's going to help me on this one.

I think everybody is allergic to agency fees but sometimes you have to bite the bullet. Germans are a communal bunch and tend to look after their own. Certainly down here it means, so I have been told, that they would tend to take somebody who already lives in the region in advance to somebody moving from Munich or, god forbid, from outside of the country.

KTRIC,
if the company you are contracted to wants you in Munich couldn't you get them to stump up some relocation cash? One thing that really helped me when I was originally moved over here was the use of a relocation agent, I bet there are a few who advertise on TT. They offer loads of different services but the minimum they do is to find out a number of apartments which fit your 'needs ' and then do all of the talking for you, they may help explain that you are not just a 6 month let, you will stay forever to marry your bavarian sweetheart blah blah...
worth a go?

@KTRIC
Aswell as the usual newspapers, try looking through the freebie local ones...if you know which area you want to live in go there and pick them up from any block of flats...they're usually lying in the entrance way. I have found my flats using them and you often get private ads (i.e. without provision).

we have just moved into a new flat, and were determined, like you, not to pay agency fees
you just have to keep looking, looking, looking - it took us a lot longer than 2 weeks to find anywhere

just don't even bother looking at places with provision (we wasted a fair bit of time making this mistake), trawl through the ads every day and phone the ones without provision *as soon as they appear*
and if you see one you like, schmooze the person showing you the flat - they've got to base their decision on something, and since they are human beings (obv I'm not talking about maklers here) they will base at least some of their decision on who they like best

ETA: just in case you don't know it, check out the Swiss Re website, they have nice flats
Swiss Re Flat Rentals

Sorry to sound a bastard but your girlfriend isn't working. You are self-emloyed in Ireland, contracted to a company in London and they have sent you here.
That is NOT the kind of story landlords want to hear.
However fabulous you salary might be (and it is well over the average), a lot of employers like to know you have a regular pay check from a regular company.
You might try a bit of "schummeling".

I wouldn't dream of even mentioning that to a prospective landlord out of fear of being shown the door. As far as they're concerned I'm working for the company in Munich directly.

Ah, you've learned the tricks of the biz then.

It would help you a lot if you had a letter from them stating this - a few years back this helped me no end, even in my probezeit. The letter should be on company headed paper, ideally state you are in permanent open-ended employment here, your salary (or at least some largish number), and the name of someone in personnel who can be contacted should the landlord need more info. Many landlords are nervous you're just going to be here for six months and cause them loads of hassle at the end of it, or not pay and feck off home where it's tough to track you down. Somehow it's an understandable fear when you see how absurdly biased in your favour the rental laws are here and you have to calm them down.

Here's my view as an experienced landlord:

Risk 1) Probezeit..guy loses job
Risk 2) GF never gets a job
Risk 3) These unmarried kids break-up, BF moves out of country leaving unemployed German GF in unit
Risk 4) Young couple starts knocking out kids and pretty soon it's a zoo in there.

I have a gold mine in Bolivia that is a good investment if you are interested. I can sell you 25% of the shares for 1 months salary. The other 5 25% shareholders and I are having a get together next week. If you bring the money in cash we can give you the deeds then and there. You will get a guaranteed surprise return on this once in a lifetime deal. Be quick though as the gold is being dug fast and the mine may not be on sale for long!

I'm not on probation, where did you get that from ?? I wouldn't class myself a "kid", I'm 28, very mature and we're together nearly 7 years, not exactly a fling. I earn enough money to support both of us comfortably and we have a bit of savings we can fall back on.

To be honest I think there's a lot more to this than I'm seeing. As someone said in a previous post, it might be down to me being a foreigner.

I ment usefull advice

Get a letter from your employer stating your monthly income (before tax) and that you have a permanent employment contract. This helped in my case.
EDIT - Also have a look at the offers from EBM-Muenchen. They offer on a first come first serve basis. There is no commission involved, but most apartments come without a fitted kitchen.

95% of people on this forum are foreigners I reckon, and lots don't have a Bavarian partner in tow. I think maybe you just need to smile a bit more.

Just an update on this with something really odd that happened with an apartment we seen. We went to see a nice place in Giesing last Tuesday, got on well (we thought) with the owner. He asked us to call him back on Thursday and he would have an answer for us then. My girlfriend called him on Wednesday just to say we really like the place and if he has made a decision, he said not yet call me tomorrow.

She called him yesterday evening and his mother answered the phone and said it was gone. Now here's where it gets silly, just after the phone call I was looking at www.immobilienscout24.de and seen the apartment !!!. My girlfriend called the agency that advertised it and they said she could see it this evening and its still available.

Why on earth would a landlord do this ??, it seems very counterproductive to me.

Perhaps the apartment is gone but the agency has not yet been updated.

The property won't disappear immediately from the website the moment a decision has been made. Or maybe they just don't want you. Either way, it's gone so move on and look for somewhere else.

The pictures on the site were taken within the past day or two. The showed the apartment in its current state (being refurbished) with the tools etc in the exact same place. They even offered to show it to my girlfriend this evening, so I would say its still available.

I'm starting to think I should check in the mirror to see if I have a second head that I don't know about

By all means, go to the viewing this evening. Take a hidden camera and capture the landlord's/agent's astonished face when he sees you. Post it here.

How are the rental laws biased in the tenants favour? I only see benefits for landlords... We had to pay a makler, huge deposit, buy our own kitchen (and then take it out) and will have no doubt completely refurbish the place when we leave. I don´t see any biases in the rental laws.

It's very, very hard to evict the fuckers once they're in for starters.

You try evicting an undesirable tenant, or raising the rent, and then you'll see how biased the laws are.

The law does not state you have to use maklers, and put in your own kitchen. Custom dictates that.

So unless I become "undesirable" or my landlord desires to increase his already high rent and I can stop him, I still see no benefit to me.

Once you are IN the flat though Renia you have more rights than you do elsewhere.

Well, like all things in life, it's just dandy until things start going wrong.

So the basic rules are dead simple. You pay €xx a month and you get a roof over your head which you are not supposed to trash. Easy, no worries etc.

The guys are referring to when the shit hits the fan and your lovely new tenant becomes a drug trading pimp who starts crapping in the corner of the lounge and has not paid you
any rent since 1973. Then it ain't so cool for the landlord.

Don't forget that repairs are the landlord's responsibility, whereas in your own house you'd have to pay for them yourself.

Sure Kay, but its not renting vs owing that I am debating, rather the assertion that Germany is a tenant´s paradise. I own property and have been a landlord myself.

I agree, I wouldn't call it a tenant's paradise, either, but I still see the question of maintenance and repairs as a benefit.

The problem with these stupid laws is that they were created by stupid leftists whose leitmotif is to ensure that all the leeches in society are able to continue stealing and conning people at everyone else's expense. If you rent a place out and the tenant stops paying the rent, you're going to go through hell to be able to get rid of him and will lose a lot of money.
If you are an honest person and pay the rent on time, all the time, then it's fair to say that things are evened out a little, but still you don't deal with all the TCO that a landlord has to deal with. Too many people think that the rent that they pay is net profit in the landlord's pocket...

I don't think it is a leftist thing that tenants have rights once they are in a property but recognition that renting a place to live is different to renting a cabrio for the weekend to drive to the moutains.
Where there is less stability in the rental contract the tenants can mov out any time they like which I as a landlord don't particuarly want either.

I completely agree with having rights as far as living standards are concerned, however the buck stops when people don't pay the rent. I don't know German society and culture well enough to comment on this particular aspect, but I know from experience in France and Belgium that landlords are depicted as such Scrooges by the media that it's gotten to the point where landlords are often happy to just get the rent paid, as if the tenant is doing them some kind of a favor, let alone worry about anything else.

Depends on the situation innit.

I'm a landlord but I have the mortgage to pay and I also invest in the property making it better for my tenants.
There are plenty of landlords who don't have serious outgongs just collect the money for nothing and don't invest in the property.

There are some bad tenants sure, but there's not a shortage of bad landlords either.

<counts money and turns off gas to punish tenants>

Doing that on such a cold day too, you meanie!

That will teach them to be so feckless and have a child out of wedlock!