I've lived, in the sense of had long-term rental contracts, in six countries, all with their own way of doing real estate, and I can say one thing without doubt; if you would like to meet a certain kind of scum of the earth anywhere on earth you happen to find yourself - the low-level sociopathic parasite kind - go to a rental real estate agency. I'm not saying all rental real estate agents are scummy - I'm just saying rental real estate agencies are probably the right places to find scummy people of the low-level sociopathic parasitic kind.
I've been lucky in generally living in places where I could shift to talk the language a bit, which, stunningly, includes here. My German isn't going to win any awards anytime soon, but it's adequate to get sold to and as a consequence it seems we have been able to rent directly from a landlord, as has usually been the case. The only place I've had to use an agency was Australia, where I've been on both sides of the coin, and been most disgusted with scummy parasitism as a landlord rather than a tenant.
Anyways, as I mentioned, we seem to have found a place to live which is a direct rental from the landlord. The contract is signed, I've transferred the deposit and first month's rent, and I have some keys, and I still can't quite believe it, because of that thing about how much Germans complain, and how much we were told it would be impossible to find a place as foreigners,
When we chose this place - which I think I also can't quite believe we've got because it's quite lovely and 200 euros below our budget - we'd been looking at another place, an agency rental. In fact we'd been there twice. And when I told the agent for it we'd taken something else, he was quite indignant we had made him go there twice, and that we had asked him to talk to the landlord over whether he would be flexible about including the two parking spots in the lease (we don't have a car anymore, so . . .)
This agent stands to make Euro 2,400 off of whatever tenant signs the lease on this place . . . and he was bitching about having to have a conversation with the landlord and visit an apartment twice after putting it on a real estate website. Euro 2,400. That's much more than a month's pay for most people here. And that was too much work for him.
Wow.
That's not the real issue, of course, which he couldn't talk about, I suppose because he thinks we don't know about it. The real issue is that German real estate law is about to change, in an effort to throw the brakes on runaway rental costs here - as of next month agencies aren't going to be able to charge tenants fees anymore, and will have to charge landlords instead. And that means landlords just won't use them, because in most of the cities here, this is totally a landlord's market right now, and all they have to do is put a sign in the window (which is what ours did). Which means that rental real estate agents are about to feel a pinch and have about three more weeks to cash in.
I guess when the agent heard our shitty Anglo accents and saw my financial records in our "application" package for this place . . . he saw euro signs . . . the last he's likely to see for awhile, since any tenant who can help it (which we aren't - the three of us are living in a glorified furnished studio that the lease runs out on in April, and we are all ready for violence) will wait a few weeks to start looking. Probably already spent it in his head.
I kind of feel sorry for him.
I've been lucky in generally living in places where I could shift to talk the language a bit, which, stunningly, includes here. My German isn't going to win any awards anytime soon, but it's adequate to get sold to and as a consequence it seems we have been able to rent directly from a landlord, as has usually been the case. The only place I've had to use an agency was Australia, where I've been on both sides of the coin, and been most disgusted with scummy parasitism as a landlord rather than a tenant.
Anyways, as I mentioned, we seem to have found a place to live which is a direct rental from the landlord. The contract is signed, I've transferred the deposit and first month's rent, and I have some keys, and I still can't quite believe it, because of that thing about how much Germans complain, and how much we were told it would be impossible to find a place as foreigners,
When we chose this place - which I think I also can't quite believe we've got because it's quite lovely and 200 euros below our budget - we'd been looking at another place, an agency rental. In fact we'd been there twice. And when I told the agent for it we'd taken something else, he was quite indignant we had made him go there twice, and that we had asked him to talk to the landlord over whether he would be flexible about including the two parking spots in the lease (we don't have a car anymore, so . . .)
This agent stands to make Euro 2,400 off of whatever tenant signs the lease on this place . . . and he was bitching about having to have a conversation with the landlord and visit an apartment twice after putting it on a real estate website. Euro 2,400. That's much more than a month's pay for most people here. And that was too much work for him.
Wow.
That's not the real issue, of course, which he couldn't talk about, I suppose because he thinks we don't know about it. The real issue is that German real estate law is about to change, in an effort to throw the brakes on runaway rental costs here - as of next month agencies aren't going to be able to charge tenants fees anymore, and will have to charge landlords instead. And that means landlords just won't use them, because in most of the cities here, this is totally a landlord's market right now, and all they have to do is put a sign in the window (which is what ours did). Which means that rental real estate agents are about to feel a pinch and have about three more weeks to cash in.
I guess when the agent heard our shitty Anglo accents and saw my financial records in our "application" package for this place . . . he saw euro signs . . . the last he's likely to see for awhile, since any tenant who can help it (which we aren't - the three of us are living in a glorified furnished studio that the lease runs out on in April, and we are all ready for violence) will wait a few weeks to start looking. Probably already spent it in his head.
I kind of feel sorry for him.
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