Countries · Germany
What to check in Germany before you sign.
The asking price in a listing is a negotiating position, not a value statement. Whoever does not know the achievable price pays what is asked.
What costs the most money in Germany
Around 872,000 property purchase contracts with a turnover of €278 billion were concluded in 2025, over 70 percent of them residential. The valuation boards record every one of these contracts, but the individual price is not open to public inspection.
Source: Working group of the German valuation committees with the BBSR, 2025
Purchase costs
9 to 15%
of the purchase price, on top of the price in the listing.
- Real estate transfer tax, by federal state3.5 to 6.5%
- Notaryaround 1.0 to 1.5%
- Land register entryaround 0.3 to 0.5%
- Agent's commission in total, VAT included3.57 to 7.14%
Source: Transfer tax rates of the federal states, the Court and Notary Costs Act, §§ 656c und 656d BGB. The range depends mainly on the state: Bavaria and Saxony charge 3.5 percent, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and Thuringia 6.5 percent. For flats and single-family houses bought for own use, buyer and seller have each borne half the agent's commission since 23 December 2020.
The trap for tenants
In Berlin, 46 percent of existing flats advertised sit above the permitted rent ceiling. For more than a third, the threshold to rent profiteering is crossed as well. In Ulm it is around 70 percent. More than 20,000 online listings from May 2024 to October 2025 were examined.
Energy and the duty to renovate
The energy certificate has to be produced at the viewing at the latest. It must be handed over after the purchase, and the mandatory figures already belong in the listing. A breach costs up to €10,000. Owners must insulate uninsulated top-floor ceilings and accessible hot-water pipes in unheated spaces.
In a residential building with no more than two flats, a two-year deadline runs from the change of ownership. The earlier duty to replace old boilers no longer exists since 29 July 2026.
Certificate validity: 10 years
What to watch for in Germany in particular
The most common way around the rent brake is letting furnished. Among furnished offers in Berlin, 69 percent sit above the permitted ceiling. For more than half of those listings, the threshold to rent profiteering is crossed as well.
The surcharge for the furniture does not have to be shown separately, and that is exactly what makes checking so hard for a tenant.
Official maps in Germany
9 map layers lie directly over your property.
Not as an average for the district, but at your exact address, with a legend and a visible source. Every layer can be switched on separately.
Check it yourself
The official bodies in Germany.
These bodies are grouped by category: property and encumbrances, energy, natural hazards and more. The report on your property names the responsible bodies, with the date checked and a link. A figure you cannot verify is not a figure, it is a claim.
over 9,000
official data sources
6
categories
What this costs
€6,830
is what the buyer of an 80 square metre flat pays on top because money laundering pushes prices up, calculated on a purchase price of 360,000 euros.
Source: Universität Trier, Trierer Institut für Geldwäsche- und Korruptions-Strafrecht, study of February 2025, data from the German FIU
45.7%
of existing flats advertised in Berlin ask for a rent that is probably above the legal ceiling. In Ulm it is 69.8 percent.
Source: Deutscher Mieterbund, DMB-Mietenmonitor 2025, 1 December 2025, based on 16,294 Berlin listings. Asking rents, not signed contracts
These numbers arise after the signature. The report does the maths before it.
The market in Germany
Residential property including residential building land: around €198 billion in turnover.
Source: Working group of the German valuation committees with the BBSR, 2025
A real dossier from this country
See what the analysis found on an actual listing in Germany — every figure with its source.
Open the example dossierOther countries