Immobilien Blues

The German word for real estate is “immobilien.” Sounds like immobile in English, meaning "not moving". Yeah, not moving. So far that’s us.

Unless you have inherited a house from a long lost German cousin, have a fairy gott mütter or are just extremely lucky, finding a house here is probably not going to happen quickly. We thought we’d be an exception. We were in for a big steaming pile of disappointment.

The first complicating factor is that in Germany there is no such thing as a multiple listing service (MLS) like we use in the U.S. Instead, each real estate agent has his or her own listings. In order to really know what is available in an area, you really do have to meet with every agent there. And only a few of them speak English.

We have to figure square meters in feet and dollars per euro for each listing, and we are learning German real estate phrases and trying our best to decipher house ads in office windows and newspapers. Online it is easier because we can translate with alta vista babel fish or other such service. But the translations aren’t always accurate or entirely understandable (like one that said a house had “mad views and children friendliness with warm feeling”).

Secondly, the dollar is as weak as rice paper these days. Add to that the already high cost of living, and you are easily paying 400,000 euro (about $600,000) for a tiny row house with an avocado green toilet and a kitchen so small a gal can’t bend over in it.

And then there is the darkness factor. I can’t tell you how many houses we’ve tried to view in the dark. It is the German way that when a family leaves a home, they take with them all of the light fixtures, cabinets, and external hardware. Sometimes they take the showers too. Built-in closets raise the tax rate for a homeowner, so rooms are just blank squares and people use wardrobes (which is tough since rooms are already smaller than in the States). We’ve looked at plenty of houses in which the realtor was proud to exclaim, “And the kitchen stays too!” In other homes, the “kitchen” was an empty room with outlets and pipes. Each renter or buyer would have to provide cabinets, sinks, appliances, etc. We even looked at a place that boasted a sauna room, only to find an empty space with an outlet where a sauna once was.

Germans don’t flip houses like we do in the States. Houses are sold after many years, and not always for a big profit. People don’t come and go so much, which means there isn’t often a large selection available at a time. It also means they don’t remodel much, which means lots of harvest gold tile and disco boogie brown appliances.

The buyers’ market is better than the renters’ market now, which gives us something to consider. We’ll be here 3-5 years, and then we could rent the home out. But here, when you rent out a home that you’ve purchased, you can’t really charge more for amenities like wine cellars and hot tubs. It’s strictly a figure based on the square meters of living space.

The final hurdle for us is imposed by our own U.S. military. There is a limited area covered by the Department of Defense (DOD) school bus service. And we want to use the bus service (contracted city buses) to avoid going through long security lines at the base gate every day. Every school falls within one of three zones. People living in any area are assigned a zone and their kids have to go to that particular zone school, even if they don’t take a bus. Every year, and often several times within the year, the DOD folks switch the zone lines. That means that it is extremely hard to predict whether or not one’s home will stay in a desired school zone. We like Patch Elementary, and our daughter is there now. But the houses we like are in the Panzer school zone. Will they be next year? Next month? Or should we skip the whole discussion altogether and send the kids to German schools?

So for now we truly are immobile, making our home at the Marriott, complete with a pool, maid service, and even a built-in sauna that really stays! Sure, it’s a nice gig if you can get it, but after a while I’d like to use my own bathroom and cook in my own kitchen -- even if it is the color of guacamole.