Germany

Germany property guide

For expats, second-home buyers and investors

EU, euro, notaries, rent caps and a Grundbuch that actually works. Munich is money. Berlin is politics and flat yields. Bavaria is cheaper to buy into than NRW because the transfer tax is half. No golden visa. Sunday is closed.

CAN FOREIGNERS LIVE THERE?

Yes, separately from owning.

- EU/EEA: live and work. Register your address (Anmeldung) if you stay.

- Visitors: Schengen 90/180.

- Non-EU: Blue Card (2026 salary often about €50,700, lower in shortage jobs), work permit, family, study, Opportunity Card. Then settlement after years plus German.

- Health insurance is mandatory from day one. Travel policies often fail the permit test.

A Berlin apartment is not a residence permit.

CAN FOREIGNERS BUY LEGALLY?

Yes. No nationality ban. Your name goes in the land register. Cash buyers are welcome. Mortgages are the filter — non-resident, non-EU borrowers get tougher LTV and paperwork.

Process: notary deed, transfer tax bill, then Grundbuch. Typically a couple of months after you agree, longer if financing or the seller’s bank is asleep.

PRICES, TIME TO SELL, YIELD (2026)

Destatis house-price index: +0.6% year on year in Q2 2026. The 2022–24 drop has stopped; it is not a boom.

Broker / lender snapshots mid-2026:

- Existing apartments: average around €287,000 / about €3,450 per m²

- Existing houses: around €375,000–€379,000 / about €3,000 per m²

- New houses: around €578,000–€583,000 / about €4,380 per m²

City reality: Munich and parts of Frankfurt/Hamburg/Stuttgart are another market. Eastern and small-town Germany is cheaper and emptier.

Time to sell:

- Finding a buyer: weeks to many months. Energy-class dogs sit.

- After agreement: notary + tax + register often 2–3 months

- Not Rightmove-fast. August and Christmas are dead.

Yield:

- Prime A-city multifamily net: about 3.5–3.8%

- Ordinary city flats gross: often 3–5%

- Example maths people use: €350k flat at €1,200 cold rent ≈ 4.1% gross, under 3% net after purchase costs

- Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) still runs in tight markets through 2029: new rents generally capped near 10% over the local reference rent

- Short-lets: city registration and bans. Berlin is not your Airbnb lab.

BUYING COSTS (BUYER PAYS)

Kaufnebenkosten: about 8–12% if a broker is involved, ~5–8% without.

- Grunderwerbsteuer: 3.5% Bavaria to 6.5% in NRW, Brandenburg, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein. Berlin 6.0%.

- Notary + land register: about 1.5–2%

- Buyer’s half of broker fee on flats/houses: often about 3.57% incl. VAT (must be split equally with the seller)

Pay the extra costs in cash. Banks finance the price, not the tax.

Annual Grundsteuer exists (reformed, still modest next to US property tax). Energy upgrades under the Building Energy Act can eat a year of yield.

SELLING: HOW EASY, WHAT IT COSTS

Clean title system. Slow-ish.

Seller typically pays:

- Their half of the broker (same split rules)

- Capital gains: private sales generally tax-free after 10 years (Spekulationsfrist). Sell sooner and income tax can apply. Primary home rules can exempt earlier if you lived there.

- No UK-style 5% second-home stamp on the way in — the transfer tax already did that job.

WEATHER

Temperate. Grey winters. Decent summers.

- North: maritime and damp

- South and Bavaria: colder winters, Alps if you earn them

- East: hotter summers, colder winters

- Pfingsten traffic is a national ritual

FOOD

Serious, regional, better than the stereotype.

Eat: bread that is an industry, sausages that are not a joke, pork with rules, Turkish food that built half of Berlin, Bavarian beer gardens, Rhine wine, a Sunday cake. Grocery quality is high. Restaurants close earlier than Spain.

THINGS TO DO

- Cities that work: trains, bikes, museums

- Alps, Baltic beaches, Rhine castles

- Christmas markets

- A walk in a forest that is actually managed

- Not the Caribbean. Different product.

SCHOOLS

Public school is free and in German. Kita (childcare) is subsidised.

International schools in the big cities. Fees can be steep. Most long-stay families put kids into the German system after a hard first year.

HOSPITALS

Statutory health insurance (GKV) for most employees; private (PKV) for some high earners and civil servants. Outcomes are good. You will need an appointment culture.

Visitors use travel cover. Residents must be insured. This is not the US bill.

SAFETY

Homicide around 0.8 per 100,000 — among Europe’s lowest. Violent crime is not the story.

Day-to-day: bike theft, pickpockets at stations, the odd rowdy night in Berlin-Neukölln. Demonstrations happen. Rural Bavaria is quiet.

US-style Level 2 language sometimes appears for terrorism/unrest. Street life is still safer than most of the Americas list.

BOTTOM LINE

Germany is France with worse food and better trains: foreigners buy freely, costs to enter are 8–12%, yields are low because tenants have rights, and the 10-year hold is how you keep the gain.

Typical picture: prices roughly flat to +1% in 2026, existing flats around €3,450/m² nationally, Munich much more, 2–3 months to complete, gross yields often 3–5%, net lower, transfer tax 3.5–6.5% by state, broker split ~3.57% each side, CGT often zero after ten years.

It works if you want EU rule of law, a rented flat that a German pension fund would understand, and a country that recycles. It works less well if you wanted 9% gross, a weekend notary and no German.