So you’re thinking of investing in an apartment in Berlin and you want to do a market survey to compare the prices. You could, of course, come to our real estate investment seminar or you could simply surf one of the German second-hand sales websites. Here we will teach you how to use Immobilien Scout 24—the leading real-estate website in Germany.
If you do not speak German, we suggest you use Google Chrome internet browser, which will automatically translate the text of the website from German to English. Usually, the browser provides a relatively effective translation, though there may be small “bugs” in the translations of certain pages.
OK, let’s go. In the Google Chrome address bar, type the website address www.immobilienscout24.de. Once on the homepage, enter the address of the building where the property-of-interest is located (circled in red).
Let’s enter the information for apartment No. 4 of Weserstrasse Project, our current project in the north section of the Neu-Kölln quarter. This apartment has a balcony and a total area of 80 m2, and sells for 129 thousand Euros. We would like to check the appeal of the property in comparison with other apartments offered for sale in the area.
In the Search field option you can set the price. We left it empty because we wanted to see all the available options. We selected apartments with two bedrooms or more and an area of at least 60 m2. In order to get results that are relevant for the area we looked only for apartments 1 km radius from the property, to locate nearby apartments as well. Finally, click the Results button (marked by an arrow).
The next screen will show a list of apartments according to your set criteria. You can select the apartment presentation order criteria (e.g. according to price). On the left side of the screen you can narrow your search even further by adding sorting criteria. We will search only for apartments with a balcony. The list will include basic information about the property: price, total square footage of the apartment, number of bedrooms. Clicking the title of the property will lead to its individual page (here the English automatic translation may not work as well).
Choose an apartment from the list. Note that the prices of the apartments should be added with approximately 13.5% (5% sales tax, 7% brokers fee and 1.5% for notarization). The price differences usually stem from the apartment and building location, the type of building, property renovations performed if at all, rent, etc. The rental fee mentioned in the table is the gross rent before deduction of heat, water, property tax and management costs.
You can scroll further down the page to view all of the information about the apartment: floor number, year of construction, renovation if performed on the property, rent, whether the apartment has a balcony or cellar, and see pictures (if available), as well as a map of the area and the apartment’s price ranking in a chart of average apartment costs in the area.
We chose an apartment in Altbau building, which was renovated about a year ago and is located adjacent to our building, at 54 Weserstrasse. Much like apartment no. 4, the selected property is rented, located on the first floor and has the luxury of a balcony. It is 20 m2 larger than apartment No. 4 and its renovation, naturally, increases its property value. The apartment is selling at a list price of 250,000 Euros and after adding 13.5% for closing costs the price per square meter is 2,827 Euros. Apartment no. 4 in Weserstrasse costs 1,621 Euro per square meter – meaning the other listed property is over 1,000 Euro per square meter more than the apartment in Weserstrasse 54.
Conclusion: the purchase price is attractive. The margin of error is very high and will allow high yield from this investment even in the case of future property renovation.
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מעודכן לתאריך: יוני 22, 2013