reberlin

This is a post I posted in a forum called ToyTownGermany.
You will find the complete thread here.

As you can easily regonize from my posts in this thread I am a Berlin based broker, and this might make you not listen to me, but for all the other readers and posters I would like to answer your post:

your figures are way to high, and your conclusions are way to aggressive.
How will you proof this?

Why do my friends (they are not broker but Internet & Tech guys) drive Jags and Porsches in the streets of Berlin?
Why does the Fashion Company Barbour (as a british company) opens up the biggest showroom on the planet in Berlin? Why do we have several flats for rent in the region of 20 Euro/sqm plus?
Why is the biggest Mercedes Benz Showroom in the World in Berlin?
Why does more luxury and five star hotels open in Berlin than anywere else in Europe?

Boorlin I don’t know were you live, but I can hardly imagine you have any onground knowledge of Berlin??
Even if you live in Neukölln or any other “problematic area” I can give you a tour to open your eyes.

The underdeveloped situation is THE BIG Chance for Berlin. Germanies Capital is a evolving Media and Technology hub. Besides all the Lobbying and Political Associations and Embassies as well as national and international institutions. To get a clue of what is going on here just sign up for the “Berlin Partner Newsletter” at www.berlinpartner.de (in english as well)

Additional I can send you some infosheets about all the stuff I mentioned above.
But you can just go and read my blog at www.reberlin.com

Lets talk about the more detailed things you mentioned in your post.

Can a renter stay for 3 years without paying rent?
If you have a tenant not paying for 3 years, you either have the wrong lawyer or you are to weak to make decisions.
The laws regarding this subject changed shortly and became much landlord friendly. The truth is in the worst case cenario a renter can extend his freeride up to 12 month. But the statistics show it happens not often, in fact most real estate proffessionals calculate with 3% risk deduction on rent that can not be collected.

People need to life on the street because of hard landlords?
Sorry, nobody in Germany gets kicked out to the street, we have social housing for everybody, it has nothing to do with “beeing kicked by a cruel landlord”. Maybe you have heard that Germany has a very big and expensive wellfaresystem, were do think the money goes?

Renters on social wellfare, a problem?
If somebody lives on social wellfare, and you buy the flat he lives in for lets say 950 Euro/sqm and he pays 6.50 Euro/sqm per month, this makes a yield of more than 7%. (These figures referr to a real deal I did in Oktober 2009 in Neukölln)

Rent payed by the municipality? To nice to be true?
You can even ask him that the municipality pays directly into your account (you need permission of the renter so).
I highly recommend not to go this way because to my opinion a renter should be able to choose what he consums and what he wants to spend for it. But if you have a renter on social wellfare always paying late its better to ask him for permission to get payed directly by the municipality.

Just my 2cents
Alexander
of BerlinInvestment.com (corporate website) and ReBerlin.com (blog)

400.000 visitors of 3.4 mio berlin visitor are families (mom, dad and kid(s)) therefore the suplly with kidfriendly hotels in Berlin is not very good. A wellknown Berlin based Hotelprojectdevelopment company wip Willmeroth Projektentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH wants to change this. They just have aquired Berlins biggest existing indoor pool form Liegenschaftsfond Berlin, a real estate asset management company owned by the municipality.
The 35.000sqm site is located at Buschkrugallee in Berlin-Britz (a subdistrict of Neukoelln). The developemnt includes a 3 to 4star hotel and othe facilities like a outdoor steamroom area.

The idea behind the holiday park is to attract loacl families as well as visiting families (tourists).

Not the standard hotel pproject idea so, and the location formerly known as “Blub” is well kown by the Berliners.

spotting property out of foreclosure is demanding but rewarding. If you would like to know more about how to spot Non Performing Loan (NPL) / foreclosure property, what are the relevant websites and which serviceproviders you need to consult, please drop us a note by email and we wil get back to you as sson as possible.

According to Deutsche Startups (DS), a Berlin based company screening and reviewing the German startup market Berlin is internet startups darling. The original post (in German) explaining the database and the way DS chrunched the numbers can be found here: Gruender lieben Berlin.

Talking to entrepreneurs in cities like Munich, Stuttgart or Mannheim, its always the same picture. Because of very low unemployment rate in the south of Germany its hard to find qualified people. If they find people they have to pay much higher wages because of higher costs of living in the rich cities of the south. Alone 30% up to 50% of household income is due for the monthly rent and side costs. Now look at Berlin, scary high unemployment rate, even among academics. Because of the magnetic power of the city thousands of young academics rather choose to be “poor but sexy” (as the major of Berlin use to say) instead of staying well payed in an unchallenging (in the meaning of creativity) inviroment. On top Berlin rents are way smaller than Munich or Frankfurt or Hamburg rents. My conclusion or rather question: When do national and international decision makers get the point that they can get professional much easier in Berlin on a lower wage than anywhere else in Germany (and even anywhere else in Europe?) Just pay your people with the Berlin Bonus.

If you are bidding 1.250.000 for a property that is advertised with 1.700.000 with a 7.7% yield and a squaremeter price of 950 Euro in an up-and-coming area, then your yield expectations are way to high at least for our company and the properties we are able to offer. We can try to find a property for you in an foreclosure or regular property auction. This comes with more risk but better yields (as always in life). We advice investors along this process based on consulting fees, charged by workdays, payed upfront.

Important note regarding buying property out of auction:
Please consider, you need to have 100% plus court fees as equity (=cash) available, because the auction process is like a black box for the bank, and they don’t even give money to Germans in this case.

Berlin-Mitte and especially every location below Torstrasse is gaining momentum while locals as well as international buyers demand drive rental prices to so far unexpected hights.

Especially big flats with miore than 3 rooms, as well as flats offering barrier-free features are in high demand. TLG Immobilien a big real estate investor (strong in East Germany) just finished an heritage building in Max-Beer-Str. 3. The 4 vacant flats were advertised for 4 days, 40 people showed up at open house and 30 people actually showed interest in renting.

Astonishing enough the flats had no balcony and no elevator, but are nicely restorated.
Nevertheless the formerly named 10 Euro frontier even for good located well equipped flats seem to vanish. In this case TLG asked and got 10 Euro per sqm cold rent.

A new builidng in Ackerstr. is rented for EUR 13 and the renter had to bring his own kitchen.
At Elisabethkirche asking price is EUR 15, and I am sure they will get it.

main reason for Berlin top restaurant shiro-i-shiro to close doors are rental prices in there very nice berlin location at the corner of Münzstr. and Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. in Berlin Mitte.

Read articel in German from gourmet report.

on this website you can check wether a certain location is top, good, average or poor.
Immobilien Kompass

For people with in depth location knowledge redundant, but very good for a first pre-check.

Because this map from German based Capital Magazin is a little bit general,
we do have our own free map, about were to invest (or were to live),
we ask your email and your buying interest in berlin real estate (selfuser, investor, size of your budget, non at all e.g. journalist, appraiser, just researching) in exchange.

please send a map request to: map@reberlin.com (this is not an autoresponder, you talk to a human beeing, please behave like it :-))