Benefit from our knowledge.
One doesn’t sell a property every day. Many people therefore lack the basic knowledge: How much is my property worth? When should I sell? What is the sales process? What are the benefits of a broker? We provide you with a few useful tips and background information.
Value a property
Determine the value of your property quickly and free of charge now. Based on your information, you will receive an initial value indication (price range).
When is it worth selling a property?
What price can one ask for a property?
What are the benefits of a professional property valuation?
Should I sell my apartment or house empty or rented?
Do I have to pay taxes on the sale of a property?
Renovated or not – what sells better?
When is it worth selling a property?
There is no special point in time for a successful sale. Sellers can always get a very good price for their property. Frequently the decision to sell is determined by the changed life circumstances of the owner: inheritance, move, divorce, or professional changes make it necessary or interesting to sell a property. Of course, you will generally have an easier time selling your property when the market is favorable. If you are able to decide on the point, you should wait for a phase during which prices are at a cyclical high – with low interest rates and high demand. The months from April to October are generally found to accelerate a sale. A suitable buyer is then quickly found. If you want to sell at another time, you should also provide impressions from the summer months as well as current photos, for instance, by also showing the green surroundings or the garden. But the season is not the only decisive factor. The sale is also affected by how much time you have. Under time pressure, one’s own negotiating hand is weakened. A prospective buyer who senses the seller’s urgency will try to push down the price.
What price can one ask for a property?
Of course, everyone wants to sell their property at maximum profit. But just setting a very high price is not a guarantee for success. Owners who love their property and don’t want to sell it under value frequently set the initial price too high. As a result, prospective buyers avoid it. The longer it then remains on the market, the more it then appears to be a loser, and it may then end up having to be sold at a markedly lower price. Information sources online, newspapers, or freely available statistics can also result in unrealistic price expectations. You should only treat such values as rough guidelines. An even bigger mistake is setting a sales price under the market value. This guarantees a quick sale but leads to unnecessary losses. We recommend having your property objectively assessed by an expert broker. With the valuation in hand, you can enter price negotiations with realistic expectations.
What are the benefits of a professional property valuation?
To sell a property, you should know its precise value. This avoids setting the price too far above or below the optimal value. Based on the property assessment, the broker then holds fact-based sales discussions with the buyer. Clear figures and values also help keep the sales negotiations short: Your benefit: You can sell your property faster at its proper market value.
A property valuation is a complex task. It is based on much more than the average price per square meter for privately owned apartments or buildings. Some of the criteria affecting the sales price are:
- The year of construction: New constructions and “true” old buildings generally go for higher prices than buildings from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
- The floor: Ground floor apartments sell for a lot less than those higher up because the risk of burglary and the heating costs are higher. In general, the higher the floor, the higher the price.
- Exterior areas, furnishings and the right number of rooms: terraces, balconies, and gardens, but also built-in kitchens and chimneys, increase the sales price. And having 3 to 5 rooms increases the value as these are most in demand.
Should I sell my apartment or house empty or rented?
You can get a good price both for a rented and for an empty property. While rented properties are generally more interesting for investors, private buyers are more often interested in empty properties. They can therefore be sold much more easily and at a higher price. Empty properties can fetch up to 30% more. The reasons: If the property is rented, the tenant protection laws take effect. One cannot simply terminate the existing rental relation in a rented apartment. A life-long right of residence is especially problematic. Only arrears in payment or a suit claiming personal use are grounds to end tenant protection early. The property owner is also restricted in how much he can increase the rent. Legal provisions such as the city’s average rent determine what goes. You should also make sure to inform any existing tenants in time of your intention to sell.
Do I have to pay taxes on the sale of a property?
One important aspect with regard to property sale is taxes and whether these should be paid. In general, the following applies: if less than 10 years have passed between the purchase and the sale of the property, a capital gains tax may be due. To this are added the solidarity tax and church tax. The seller is released from the obligation to pay tax either if he has exclusively lived in the apartment himself since its construction or acquisition or has used it himself for at least the past three years without renting. Even holiday homes are not subject to tax if they were exclusively used privately. You should absolutely check before the sale whether you would be subject to the capital gains tax.
Renovated or not – what sells better?
The first impression counts – that’s true for people and also for properties. Especially if you are putting your property up for sale in a superior price range, an appealing presentation may be worth the investment. This may require renovation. Well-funded buyers will then be even more likely to opt for your offer. However, renovating is not absolutely necessary. The works cost time and money. And the seller then has to make up for the expenses through a higher sales price. Your broker can tell you whether renovating makes sense or not for your property.
What are the benefits of a broker?
Our checklist for your property sale
Detailed listing of required documents for the sale of residential property.
See checklist
Our acquisition profile
We are interested in privately owned apartments, commercial and office/industrial properties in Berlin and other metropolises in Germany.
Download acquisition profile (PDF)
Property sales process
Selling a property is a complex process, and we guide you through it from A to Z.
Zum AblaufDefinitions in brief
Little glossary for property sale
Priority notice of conveyance
The term priority notice of conveyance refers to the transfer of the property or the registration of the change of ownership.
The priority notice of conveyance is the most common notice in Part II of the Land Register: it secures the buyer’s claim to transfer of ownership until he is finally registered as the new owner.
The priority notice of conveyance, therefore protects the buyer and is intended to prevent the seller from reselling the property.
Division plans
A division plan, according to § 7 para. IV WEG (Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaftsgesetz, German Commonhold Association Act) is “a plan with the building authority’s stamp or seal that shows the division of the building as well as the location and size of the parts that are private or common property”. When selling a residential complex, for instance, a detailed division plan is an essential requirement.
The division plan therefore delineates the private from the common property. All individual rooms belonging to the same apartment or partial ownership should be marked with the same number (§ 7 para. IV clause 2 WEG). This ensures that the partial ownership relations are clear.
Easement
An easement is a right in rem to use a foreign property. Properties may have different types of rights of use:
- Land easements (rights of way, public utilities easement)
- Restricted personal easements (right of residence, right to nominate tenants, right of use)
- Beneficial interest
All easements and restrictions can be viewed in the Land Register. Part II of the Land Register contains all information on beneficial interests, rights of pre-emption, and land easements, while liens on the property are listed in Part III.
Energy Performance Certificate
Every owner wishing to sell, rent or lease a property in Germany is in principle obligated to issue an Energy Performance Certificate, as this is prescribed by the German Energy Savings Act (Energieeinsparverordnung, EnEV).
The Energy Performance Certificate presents the key energy figures of a property and states the final and primary energy requirements in kWh/m2a. It also assigns the property to an energy efficiency class (A+ to H).
The Energy Performance Certificate is consumption-oriented, as it is based on the energy consumption of the residents/users in the past three years. The last three energy bills of the respective energy supplier are generally referred to. The consumption-oriented Energy Performance Certificate always refers to the energetic, effective building surface area, which may deviate from the actual living area.
For residential buildings with up to four residential units that were built prior to 1977, an energy consumption certificate is additionally prescribed. In this case, an expert inspects the building’s structures and determines how high the object’s energy consumption must be.
Introduction to the Land Register
The Land Register is a public, official directory of land plots. It includes all ownership relations and possible rights and burdens connected with the plot. Every plot has its own Land Register folio at the administrative court.
The Land Register consists of several parts. The Land Register index holds information on the location and size according to the cadastre. It shows the district, plot, and plot section. The index is followed by the three parts.
Part I defines the ownership relations. In addition to the owners, Part I also notes the distribution of the ownership; for married couples, for example, there will usually be a note “half each”.
Part II lists the easements and restrictions placed on the property. These include rights of way, rights of residence, rights of pre-emption, and similar.
Part III lists the burdens: liens on the property, mortgages and land charges. Since land charges are not automatically deleted with the payment of the final installment of the loan, they can remain in the Register even if the owner no longer has any payment obligations. Should a loan-taker change banks in the course of follow-up financing, the land charge doesn’t have to be deleted, and a new one entered. A much cheaper alternative is to assign the rights from the land charge to the successor bank.
The Land Register extract is a complete “copy” of all Land Register entries for a plot.
Maintenance reserve
A commonhold association (Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaft, WEG) usually sets up an adequate maintenance reserve, the amount of which is defined by resolution of the commonhold assembly (§21 para. 5 No. 4 WEG).
The maintenance reserve is a provision both for future larger maintenance expenses (for instance repainting the façade) and to finance sudden repairs. This reserve is usually paid as part of the monthly commonhold fees paid by each owner. The commonhold association decides on how to set up the reserve by majority vote.
Declaration of division
The declaration of division governs the ownership relations within a commonhold association (e.g., in a residential building).
It establishes the property as residential ownership, defines the usage of the spaces, and settles the rights and obligations of the individual owners. The assignment into private and common property is based on the provisions of commonhold property law.Usually the declaration of division consists of the following parts:
- Division plan
- Certificate of self-containment
- Bye-laws
1. The division plan separates the private from the common property. The division plan is a construction plan of a building at a scale of 1:100 that operates a numerical separation of the residential units.
2. The certificate of self-containment is the basis for the establishment of a residential unit or partial ownership. It states that the formed ownership units are self-contained, i.e., their space is separate from the rest.
3. The bye-laws govern the relation of the apartment owners between each other, taking into consideration the specificities of the particular commonhold complex. It, therefore, acts as the constitution and basic law of the commonhold association (Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaft, WEG).
WEG minutes
German commonhold property law prescribes that minutes should be taken to record commonhold assembly resolutions (§ 24 para. 6 clause 1 WEG).
These minutes are generally recorded by the facility manager (usually under a facility management contract). What is important is that the minutes record not just the passed resolutions but also those that failed to pass – i.e., the resolution suggestions and their negative voting results.
The facility manager must then register the resolutions passed at a commonhold assembly in the record of resolutions without delay. This record collects all resolutions ever passed.
The sale of a property requires the last three minutes of the commonhold association and the record of resolutions for the time preceding that.
Financial plan
A commonhold association (Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaft, WEG) always requires sufficient financial means to ensure the management of the common property. The expenses are borne by all apartment owners, based on their shares, in the form of commonhold fees. These are pre-payments to cover the planned costs for the full financial year. Every commonhold association, therefore, requires a good financial plan.
The financial plan is drawn up by the facility manager of a commonhold association for one calendar year. It presents a forecast of the costs for the following year. Expected expense increases, fixed additional costs or expected losses in commonhold fees are estimated.
Every apartment owner is sent the amount of their contribution in the form of an individual financial plan based on the distribution scale prescribed by the bye-laws.
Commonhold fees
According to §16 II WEG, every apartment owner is obligated towards the commonhold association to bear the costs of the common property as well as the costs of
- maintenance
- repair
- management
- and common use
based on their share of ownership.
The amount of the monthly commonhold fee is set in the financial plan. The facility manager informs the owners in the annual statement of accounts about the due pre-payments for the following calendar year.
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