We're moving to the Celle area sometime this Spring (for my husband's job) and I wanted to get some info. about the schools and housing options for that area. We have 3 children - 4, 6 & 9, who are just starting to learn a little German via Rosetta Stone. I don't think the company is going to pay for International school, and actually we would really like the girls to integrate and learn German so we're OK with them going to the local schools. My question is, are there good schools in Celle, or should we be looking more at Bremen, Hannover or other areas? Will they be able to start school with very little German?

Also, we will probably be renting a house there. Could someone tell me about how much the rental prices are for a home with at least 3 bedrooms?

Thank you so much. I really love this website!

Hi

Promise it's not advertisment, or any kind of bias, but I can promise you that the International school is good...great language support etc. Annie

Thanks for your reply. We had planned initially to send our 2 oldest to the International School, (or at least check it out), but it looks like the company won't pay for it, and from what I've heard, they are pretty expensive. I checked out the website for the International School in Bremen. It definitely looked very nice.

Hi Cindy,

The website for the International School in Hannover is here: http://www.is-hr.de/

and yes, it's expensive. Roughly €9000 per year per child, depending on age. Having said that, they do have an excellent reputation.

I'll put it this way, I've never heard anything bad about the schools in Celle. There are a few in Hannover that aren't so hot, but your kids' age, if they go to a public school IIRC they pretty much have to go to the one in your neighborhood. It's only at the upper school level (Gymnasium/Realschule/Hauptschule) that you can start to choose.

As for how well your kids will integrate, well, that depends on the school and whether they are equipped to deal with non-German-speaking kids. Ask around at the city hall in Celle -- surely they can advise you there. The younger kids ought to be able to adapt fairly quickly, since they're still at the age where learning a new language is much easier, but the oldest may struggle a bit. It wouldn't hurt to get them learning German as soon as possible.

HTH

Fairfax71

Thanks so much. I'm not sure we will be able to afford the tuition + registration fees for our 2 oldest girls that the school in Hannover charges. I figure they could go to the local school, and I can home-school them to keep them up to date with their classes here if I have to. Thanks for the info. about City Hall. Is that the common place in the cities there to inquire about the quality of different schools? That was definitely one of the concerns that we have.

If we arrive in April, should we put them in school immediately, or wait until the next school session starts?

Thanks in advance for any and all replies!

"City Hall" (or the Rathaus) is more of a catch-all term for the local government, but yes, it's the first place to ask AFAICS. The specific department would probably be the Schulbehörde or the Jugendamt.

I did a bit of googling and found this:

http://www.landkreis-celle.de/index.php?id...sid=92&hi=0
http://www.landkreis-celle.de/index.php?id...&hi=0,16,92
http://www.landkreis-celle.de/index.php?id...sid=92&hi=0


I honestly don't know, but my hunch is that it would be better to wait until the beginning of the term -- otherwise they may have a harder time adjusting and landing in the middle of lessons or projects already in progress. Even so, the schools would be the best people to ask IMO.

There is another vague possibility: sending your kids to the British military's school in Fallingbostel. But I don't know if that is possible at all for civilians or non-UK citizens. Their website is here:

http://www.Heideschool.ik.org/p_Welcome_to_Heide_School.ikml

Cheers,

Fairfax71

Cindy, I think you will find that rents are fairly reasonable for this part of Germany. There have been various threads about Celle previously on TT - do a search in the search window for Celle. Also, arriving mid term in April is going to create problems. I think the best bet would be to wait for the beginning of the new school year and enroll your kids for the new school year beginning in Aug/Sept. Once you have identified where you will be living the schools your children will be attending will all be in the local area - then it would be a matter of approaching the schools directly. They may actually recommend that you wait until the new school year.

Surely, you will either be moving into a hotel or your husband's company will be organizing your initial accommodation. Therefore you would be able to make contact with the schools before you leave the US. Is this a temporary move or do you plan to be here for a few years?

Bremen is at least 1.5 hours driving distance from Celle. International school there charges around €10K as well.

Just so you know - (long term) home schooling is illegal in Germany.

I am sure you must be feeling quite concerned about how you are going to manage the move. Have you done an international move before? Check out too, whether you will be able to drive on your American licence. Can you swap it over for a German one? If not you will have up to 6 months to get a German one - bad luck if you have to go through the process of doing a test.

If your house hasn't been organized for you by your husband's company do watch out for Maklers, Real Estate Agents. They do very little and expect a commission of up to 3 times the monthly rental but perhaps you can recoup this fee as part of your relocation costs.

If I can help with anything else PM me.

Er, not exactly true, not if you parse Cindy's post more carefully. Home schooling is only illegal if you refuse to send your child to an accredited school. Merely supplementing a child's regular education (which is what Cindy seems to mean) is hardly illegal!

Cheers,

Fairfax71

Regarding your driver's license, you can generally go to the equivalent of the DMV (usually the Kfz-Zulassungstelle or Führerscheinstelle), present your American license and get a German one after paying a fee. However, it depends on what state issued your license -- with some states, you can get a German/EU license just by paying the fee, but in other cases you have to do either the written test, the driving test, or both. You also have to do this within the first six months you are here, otherwise you have to do the full driver's education (which is very costly).

The ADAC (the local partner of AAA) has more information here:

http://www.adac.de/Recht_und_Rat/Fuehrersc...rcePageID=10246

Be warned: Often the Führerscheinstelle will demand your American license, which is sent back to the state authorities in America and then returned to you or simply kept by them. However, you can try to refuse to give it up if you provide a good reason as to why you must keep it (such as needing it for identification in America).

Cheers,

Fairfax71

Actually you should verify what is mandatory and what is "can be".
Schooling of school-aged children is mandatory & I think you should be sure of your ground before not sending them to school for part of April, all May/June & part July...

The Summer school vacation in Niedersachsen starts 10th July. School restarts 21st August 2008. See http://www.schulferien.org & navigate around a bit.

Thanks, I have sent them an inquiry. Their school & program looks very nice. I found another website that listed this and other UK military schools, and it looks like they are free for military kids, but depending on space, non-military families could pay tuition to get in (couldn't find out how much).

I might stay here with our girls until their school year is over (end of May), while my husband starts his new postion in Celle. Hopefully they would allow us to wait until the new school term begins to start in that case. Thanks so much for all the links you provided.

Hopefully they will do that. We haven't received the final offer of what they will do. We do know that we will have to provide our permanent accommodation. What we've heard is that it's open-ended. As long as there is work for my husband to do, we can stay. (Hopefully that's a long time.)


Bremen's out then. I didn't realize it was that far away.


Yeah, I had heard that. As Fairfax said, I plan to supplement with homeschooling only if needed.


I lived in New Zealand for a year, but was single and only took clothes with me, didn't ship anything. This will be a huge thing to handle, I'm sure. Thanks for the info. on the driver's licenses. We will get that handled asap.

I'm wondering if it might be wiser to find a house in an area that we like with a good school nearby, and buy it instead of renting it. It seems that there are a lot of extra fees connected with renting. When we sell our house here in the states we'll have a pretty good down payment to put down. I had heard that most people rent, but when looking at the real estate sites, I've found mostly houses for sale, not for rent. But could be that I'm not looking at the right websites. Anyway, any information you all could give me would be very much appreciated.

One thing I am very curious about is: do you have to "buy" your kitchen, as far as cabinets, appliances, etc. when you rent or buy a home there? That's very different.

Thanks so much to all that have responded.

Renting houses is quite expensive. On the long run it is definitely cheaper to buy.
When you buy a house you roughly have to add 10% (tax (3%), agent(3-5%), notary (1%) etc).
That will be lost if you sell the next day.
I just looked at http://www.immobilienscout24.de
How cheap houses in Celle are! I think you should be able to buy a decent house for 200t€ (here in Heidelberg the prices are 50% higher!)
These days the Dollar rate is extremely bad for you. Wouldn't it be better to rent first and buy after the exchange rate is more in favour of the Dollar again?
Some houses (I would say all used houses) have kitchens installed. This includes a cooker and dish washer.
If you rent, sometimes the former renter installed a kitchen. He may asked you for some money for it.
If there is none you will have to buy one.
The rest of the rooms will be empty.

The housing market here in the States is taking a downward plunge. Could anyone tell me how the housing market is doing in Germany? Also, do most houses have basements, and how can you tell that in the ads?

Thanks much,
Cindy

As I mentioned in my last posting houses in the Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt (and also Heidelberg) are pretty expensive. My feeling is that the prices were pretty stable the last 5 years. I would not expect much change in the future. The can't get much higher, since nobody will be able to pay the prices. In "rural" areas like Celle prices very much depend on the local situation. Should the only employer go bancrupt a lot of the employees will have to sell. However, there will be no buyers. I can't imagine that that could happen in F, S or M.
This risk I see for you is that you take 300k$ to buy a house for 200k€, sell for 200k€ after 5 years change the Euro back to $ and only get 200t$. Yes, most of the houses will have a basement. Look for the word "Keller" or "unterkellert".

That hasn't stopped house prices from soaring in parts of the UK...

On the basement front things vary. Basements here are almost always dry unlike the dank gloomy basements in many Victorian houses in the UK...
Having a cellar does put the price of the house up but IMHO its worth it. Our house has "half a cellar" but its still plenty of space with one large
room, a food storage area and a room for the heating system & the washing machines & dryer (although some will recommend that you should not
put all into the same room...).

Oh yes - the weather in Celle is probably a bit "better" (in Summer) than in Hamburg area due to being a bit further away from the sea. Its usually a few degrees warmer in Summer/Autumn...

Hi Cindy,

The housing market in the Hannover region in general is pretty stagnant -- not really growing, but not collapsing, either. Prices have taken a general downward drift for some time (partly aided by the abolishment of a substantial subsidy for new homeowners).

Whether houses have basements really varies in Germany. It mainly depends on how high the water table is, and that can vary widely even in a small area. For example, here in Hannover some parts of town generally have full basements, but in Kirchrode and parts southwards the water table is very high and few homes in that area have a basement, since it would mean a very expensive waterproofing of the foundation. I don't know what it's like in Celle itself, though.

The term you're looking for in the ads is "Keller" or better "Vollkeller" -- that means a full basement.

Cheers,

Fairfax71

Thanks so much for all the replies. I've been looking both at houses to rent & to buy, and I'm slowing picking up the German words on the ads. Knowing what a basement is in German will be so helpful, because we definitely would like to have one. I grew up having basements in the midwest, but here in Houston they are nowhere to be found. They're great to have.

Also, I didn't take into consideration that the dollar price relative to the euro might change, negatively affecting a housing purchase. Definitely something to think about. We're not sure how long we'll be in Germany, so maybe it's not worth the risk of buying.

Hi Cindy,

Well, it's true that you might take it on the nose with the dollar fluctuating and a possible continuing slide in the market in northern Germany, but OTOH paying rent is basically tossing money out the window. If you buy, at least you build up equity, and whatever theoretical losses you make won't come close to the loss of paying rent. Of course, it also depends on how long you're going to be here, but if you're here for more than five to ten years, my feeling is that it makes more sense to buy. But YMMV.

Food for thought anyway.

Drop me a line when you move in.

Cheers,

Fairfax71

It all depends how long you will stay and how the exchange rate between $ and € will change in future.
If you stay 5 years the rent will be 40t€ (I assumed 700€ "Kaltmiete" bare rent). If you buy a house for 200t€
you will pay an additional 10% for tax etc. Advantage for buying the house 20t€. However, if the exchange rate
goes down from 1.5 to 1.35 you are loosing 20t€ - break even. It all depends. Difficult decision.

It took me a awhile to reply to your answers. Thanks so much for all the info. My husband may go before me & the kids to check out different housing options. I'm really enjoying looking at all the houses for rent/sale on the internet! Also, we found out that they company may pay for international school for our girls after all, so we are going to check out the International school in Hannover. That looks like the closest option to Celle. My husband wants to bikeride to work, so we'll probably try to find something close to Celle, and I'll drive the girls to school.

Anyway, thanks so much for the advice. I'm sure I'll be needing more!

Hi,

I've been living in Bergen just up the road from Celle for nearly six years. My husband was in the British Army for 5 of those so we had access to the military schools which are really good here. I thought I would just let you know that in fact there are at least 5 elementary schools in the area, 1 in Celle, 2 in Bergen and 2 in Fallingbostel near Soltau, as for secondary schools/ High school there is only one and it's based in Bergen and all the military children from Celle and Fallingbostel and bergen go there.

When my husbnad left the Army we paid for the kids to keep going to their elementary school in Bergen in cost us GBP 5,485. per term for both kids. They also have a school lunch program that costs 2.65 Euro per lunch and you get to choose which ones they want the month before.

These schools are really well funded with loads of activities and special features going on all the time and the kids are all educated under the british system and they have german lessons weekly as well.

If your company or you are prepared to pay then I would go for these as it's a quite a drive from Celle to the hannover school daily!! I checked that out as an opton for us when my husband left and although the military schools are a bit more expensive you'd pay more than that on gas prices which are at 1.44 Euro a litre here at the moment!!

There was laso a french couple that sent their kids to Montgomery school where my kids went and the army gives you a special pass to enter the camps or alternatively some of the schools are off camps which would be better for you I think.

All the information is on the web under SCE british army germany and you can call them and they ask the schools if they have room for you and that's about it, if you keep your options open about which school you will probably have no problem. I do know they have their prices high to discourage foreign businesses from placing their kids in their schools but as they are not well advertised I think most overlook them and choose the international schools.

Also just to let you know I sent my daughter to a german kindergarten for 3.5 years until she turned 6 and they were really good with her after a short while she was speaking like a native and still understands/speaks it very well now. I also thought about the german school for her and my son and the ones in our local(Hermannsburg) were very accepting and offered extra help for their german.

I hope this helps

Looks like our move is a sure thing and will be happening at the end of the summer. I can't wait to get over there. We're now looking at what to bring, and what not to furniture-wise. We want to bring a lot of our furniture but we're unsure if it will fit in the house/room sizes there. For instance we have a king-sized sleigh bed that we definitely don't want to get rid of. If we have it shipped over and it doesn't fit in the house/apt. that we rent, are there storage facilities available? (They're on every corner here in Houston.)

Thanks for any and all replies. I'm sure I'll have many more questions as the summer wears on!

Cindy

The sleigh bed, if it can't be disassembled, may not fit through the doors of your apartment, but it really depends on the apartment. The room sizes also vary widely, though their average size is certainly smaller than what you'd find in most parts of the States. A typical apartment is usually three or four rooms plus kitchen, hall and bath, and usually around 80-100 square meters (850-1100 sq. ft.), so that should give you an idea of the size of the rooms. Some buildings, though, aren't rectangular, so you may have irregularly shaped rooms. I've seen some apartments with nary a right angle...

There are storage places around Hannover -- there's a new one going in, for example, where Hildesheimer Straße and the Südschnellweg cross (across from the McDonald's). The rent for storage lockers is usually around €50-60/month. However, they're not as common here (there might not be one near you) and you may want to try renting a normal garage instead, which also cost about the same. Unfortunately finding those is often a matter of luck depending on your neighborhood. So it's possible, but I wouldn't 100% count on it.

Good luck with the move!

Cheers,

Fairfax71

EDIT: I forgot to add that even if the doors are too small for your bed, there may still be a way to get it in, such as through a window. If you are using a moving company, they may be able to manage anyway.

I've been looking on the immopool & immobilien sites, and I have seen that the home sizes are much smaller. We own a house here in Houston that is over 3000 sq ft. +, so to move into a 1000 sq. foot apt/house will be quite a change for us. We're really hoping to find a single family home with a basement available to rent. We'll have 3 months after we get there with a furnished apt. from the company, to find our permanent housing.

Our sleigh bed does disassemble, but it could swallow up a small room for sure.

One other question I have (at least the one that's on mind right now), is does the Celle area experience a lot of snow in the winter? I know it's cold there, but I haven't seen too much about the weather conditions during the winter. Just curious. I grew up in the midwest of the US, and we had a lot of blizzards and icy storms. I'm definitely ready to escape these 90 degree F days!

Depends on your definition of "cold".

I live a hundred or so kms North... The "normal" Winter has a fair amount of rain, and long periods a few degrees above freezing. Usually there is very little snow. You are likely to get a cold period lasting a few weeks where it goes down to minus 20C and is so dry that the sparks fly. Can be interesting when it ends with rain (Eisregen) falling on deeply frozen ground, roads, cars...

That said, there are exceptions - I have described what has been happening in recent years.

Ya, what HEM said. I live in Hannover, which is about 40 km (25 miles) from Celle. Most of the winter it usually hovers around freezing, and we get more rain than snow (but lots of rain and drizzle). What little snow we get doesn't tend to be around for long, either. Sometimes it will get colder, maybe -5°C (23°F) or so, but it rarely gets colder than that.

The disadvantage is that the winters are long and grey, and the winter days especially short. We have long stretches where there's basically no sun to speak of.

We do get 90°F heat sometimes, though. Just a week or so ago we were pushing the 90°F mark, but it's cooled down considerably now. However, it's not frequent and some summers it doesn't crawl out of the 70s, so...

Cheers,

Fairfax71

I would love a summer that didn't creep out of the 70's...

Unfortunately such summers are also usually accompanied by plenty of rain.

Cheers,

Fairfax71

2003 was pretty heavy - 34 Celsius in July, last year was crap, this year started ok, but at the moment it´s not so warm -"Schafskälte". We gardeners are always occupied with the prevailing weather conditions, eh Fairfax? I prefer it not quite so hot, actually (fondly remembers childhood in short trousers in all weathers - didn´t do me any harm, etc.,)

I'm a gardener myself. That's one thing I hadn't thought of - change of climate for gardening. I'm used to looking for plants that don't tolerate frost as well as, some tropical varieties. That will be a lot of fun learning about plants for the cooler (and wetter) climate. Do most Germans have gardens (including food-producing)? That's one reason I want to find a single family home, as well as needing a yard for our golden retriever.

To generalise most Germans live in a flat or apartment which will have no more than a balcony. However a small percentage will have an allotment or Schrebergarten / Kleingarten anything between next door & a fair drive away on which they will have some hut (ranging is size from a tool shed to a villa) and grow vegetables etc etc...

Those with houses & a private garden - its seems to vary. I seem more people growing vegetables in their garden down South (Stuttgart area) than up here...

Well, hopefully we can find something that can accomodate at least a small garden...I grew up in the midwest of the US where we had very cold, snowy winters and warm summers, and could grow a wonderful garden.

I guess with all the rain ya'll get, it must at least be very green! The pictures I've seen are all beautiful.