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Skys

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Hello,

I have been posting here for about a year. I have read so many books about succes and wealth, and almost in every book the concept of a mastermind group comes up. So, I want to start one. The target area would be Europe, The Netherlands. We can start on Skype, my skype adress = niels.wi
You can add me at any time. I will make a skype entrepreneurs group which you can join.
I think it would be best to have a meeting once a month, in Amsterdam.

Let me know if interested, see you on Skype!
 
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Entrepreneur_87

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Hey Skys,

this is an amazing idea and iam very interested in building and entrepreneur network. i will add you on skype and i hope that the group will have an added value to all members :)

see you on skype
 

s7g

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Bump! I suppose we need an European thread with what does and what doesn't work in Europe. Some ideas although useful in US are recipes for disaster in EU. E.g. in Germany we face an anti-landlord law making real estate investing much riskier business than in US. Hustling and flipping things on ebay is also risky in Germany, as long as you act as an individual (and not a company). And so on...
Anyone interested in participating?
 
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H. Palmer

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Bump! I suppose we need an European thread with what does and what doesn't work in Europe. Some ideas although useful in US are recipes for disaster in EU. E.g. in Germany we face an anti-landlord law making real estate investing much riskier business than in US.

Out of my personal experience I can say this is absolutely true.

As a Dutchman, early 2013 I invested in a so called investment property in Emden (Niedersachsen, Germany) and so far it's been a disaster.

Totally inexperienced at first, I am now frantically learning everything I can about German real estate law and almost every week I just fall off my chair reading about another law that gives the tenant all the control and all the ways to abuse the system while the owner is left out in the dark.

The collective of all these laws make Germany the only country in the world that has the so called Mietnomaden, the nomad tenants, that go from one property to another, live in them for half a year off the back of the owner, without ever paying anything.

This "investment" is now costing me 300 euro's per month, in utilities (Stadtwerke), mandatory maintenance and to the city, while the fastest trajectory to get the parasite tenant out will at least take another 3 months going through the legal system. And that's a process that I don't have any experience with.

This situation is absolutely impossible in the US and it's time American real estate gurus stop saying that real estate is "passive income" and "you can do this anywhere". Think Robert T. Kiyosaki. Because you can't.

This is just one way that US recipes don't work in Europe. (I have to add continental Europe, because the UK is an exception).

I'm not saying the general direction, like having control and leverage, doesn't work in Europe. I'm saying that things are so different here that the general idea can only be turned into a recipe in a completely unique manner that in no way looks similar to the American recipe.

And this unique manner has to be found by experimentation, not by copying.

In real estate for example, control is by law not with the owner, but with the tenant. Start from there.

Hustling and flipping things on ebay is also risky in Germany, as long as you act as an individual (and not a company).

I happened to have started on ebay.de last week offering my Amazon inventory there. What do you mean? Is this about liability or Paypal?

And so on...Anyone interested in participating?

Well, I think localisation of fastlane principles is such an overlooked topic that just a thread is not enough. It deserves its own section on the forum.

Anyway I'm happy to exchange information and if you want to go on skype, let's do that as well.

Are you in real estate and ebay?
 
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s7g

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This is just one way that US recipes don't work in Europe. (I have to add continental Europe, because the UK is an exception).

I think it's important to stress that most of the entrepreneurial advice is heavily US-biased. This is why I wanted an EU ex UK thread about fastlane.
Real estate investing in Germany has a few profitable segments, e.g. mini apartments for students. A friend of mine whom I help with taxes does it, that's why I have a deep look inside the financial part of it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not adverse to index investing. If you can live with 2-4 ETFs as your money machine, forget real estate in Germany and focus on your fastlane.

I happened to have started on ebay.de last week offering my Amazon inventory there. What do you mean? Is this about liability or Paypal?

I mean flipping things on ebay without having a company, i.e. Gewerbeanmeldung. You have to be careful not to get targeted by rogue attorneys (Abmahnanwälte). And if you want to start a company on the side so to say, make sure that your landlord and your present slowlane employer allow it - they can ban it in your rental and employment contracts.

Are you in real estate and ebay?

I don't want to buy real estate in Germany, it may be profitable, but it's a lot of hassle IMHO. Ebay - I ocasionally sell or flip things, mostly to get rid of what I don't need anymore. I see it more as a training in selling and haggling than as a source of income, and I prefer Kleinanzeigen - no fees and no tracks left (cloak-and-dagger selling so to say). I started with SEO and AM, and I see my fastlane future in internet / direct marketing rather.
 

H. Palmer

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I mean flipping things on ebay without having a company, i.e. Gewerbeanmeldung. You have to be careful not to get targeted by rogue attorneys (Abmahnanwälte).

Thanks for this, I will look into it.

Real estate investing in Germany has a few profitable segments, e.g. mini apartments for students. A friend of mine whom I help with taxes does it, that's why I have a deep look inside the financial part of it.

I don't want to buy real estate in Germany, it may be profitable, but it's a lot of hassle IMHO. Ebay - I ocasionally sell or flip things, mostly to get rid of what I don't need anymore. I see it more as a training in selling and haggling than as a source of income, and I prefer Kleinanzeigen - no fees and no tracks left (cloak-and-dagger selling so to say). I started with SEO and AM, and I see my fastlane future in internet / direct marketing rather.


I started out in RE in Germany as a long term involvement, not to be deterred by setbacks. So far I've learned an enormous amount of stuff about the country and the legal system, the market and last but not least the language. I can now speak German almost fluently while I started out as mediocre 3 years ago. These are all big wins.

I know renting out in Germany can be profitable because I know several people that are doing it, so it's a matter of finding the formula.

Renting out to students. That's interesting because I see the same thing in the Netherlands where the RE market is even more screwed up than in Germany. In Germany it's "only" tenant protection that spoils the party, in the Netherlands it's that AND the financing part that have F*cked it up with prices for the same house being almost twice what they are in Germany.

Nonetheless, I'm determined to make it work in Germany and 'm developing scripts for every part of the process of RE investing and renting out. For example, a few tips that even most of the PRO's don't know about.

1. The owner is responsible for paying the utilities and can then refer the bill to the tenant (umlegen). The Nebenkostenabrechnung is responsible for 37 percent of all conflicts. A new phenomenon is to let all the utilities be delivered by a contractor who is the owner of the energy installations in the house and then the tenant deals directly with the contractor. The owner is off the hook as far as gas, electricity, warm water, etc. No conflicts anymore about the utility bills.

2. With the law heavily skewed against the owner, tenant selection should be given much more weight. The owner should select tenants like a bank selects its borrowers on the basis of income and collateral. The time frame between the first non-payment by the tenant and first possible eviction is at least 5 months, which means 5 months loss of rent.

To compensate for this, the rental agreement (Mietvertrag) should contain provisions for:

. a 2 month deposit (Kaution)
. an agreement that in the case of more than 2 months rental default the rent can be collected through direct debit (SEPA Lastschrift)
. the tenant's net income and possessions should be such that the rest of the rent loss can be collected by the courthouse executioner (Gerichtsvollzieher) through salary constraints or through confiscation of goods and money.

3. If it comes to eviction choose the so called Berliner Räumung. A property manager that is working for me now almost gave me a heart attack this week when he told me an eviction in Germany costs about 6000 euros. What???????? It seems he was referring to the traditional eviction that includes getting all the stuff out of the house and into custody. Since the legal reforms of 2013 there is now the Limited Eviction (beschränkte Räumung) which means: tenant goes out, stuff stays in. This type of eviction is far cheaper (in the order of 100 - 200 euros) and only takes a court executioner and a key service (Schlösseldienst) to force the door open and change the locks.

Besides these tips I learned that much depends on the property manager (Mietverwalter). While my first Mietverwalter was corrupt as hell, I now have a guy that is already working for me for nothing just to see if he can fix the situation. Another one comes recommended by a lot of owners and seems to working miracles with cases just like mine. So there you go.

In the long run I see a huge market for self help information products tailored to Germany property owners. All the advice they are getting now seems to come from Anwälte and professors who don't own property themselves. They're amateurs quoting from theory.

I've read 5 or 6 of their books and they seem to be more involved in scaring the reader and belittling him than in giving useful advice, let alone creative ideas. This is a giant opportunity for a provider of information products which is my main business.
 
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s7g

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Thanks for this, I will look into it.




I started out in RE in Germany as a long term involvement, not to be deterred by setbacks. So far I've learned an enormous amount of stuff about the country and the legal system, the market and last but not least the language. I can now speak German almost fluently while I started out as mediocre 3 years ago. These are all big wins.

I know renting out in Germany can be profitable because I know several people that are doing it, so it's a matter of finding the formula.

Renting out to students. That's interesting because I see the same thing in the Netherlands where the RE market is even more screwed up than in Germany. In Germany it's "only" tenant protection that spoils the party, in the Netherlands it's that AND the financing part that have F*cked it up with prices for the same house being almost twice what they are in Germany.

Nonetheless, I'm determined to make it work in Germany and 'm developing scripts for every part of the process of RE investing and renting out. For example, a few tips that even most of the PRO's don't know about.

1. The owner is responsible for paying the utilities and can then refer the bill to the tenant (umlegen). The Nebenkostenabrechnung is responsible for 37 percent of all conflicts. A new phenomenon is to let all the utilities be delivered by a contractor who is the owner of the energy installations in the house and then the tenant deals directly with the contractor. The owner is off the hook as far as gas, electricity, warm water, etc. No conflicts anymore about the utility bills.

2. With the law heavily skewed against the owner, tenant selection should be given much more weight. The owner should select tenants like a bank selects its borrowers on the basis of income and collateral. The time frame between the first non-payment by the tenant and first possible eviction is at least 5 months, which means 5 months loss of rent.

To compensate for this, the rental agreement (Mietvertrag) should contain provisions for:

. a 2 month deposit (Kaution)
. an agreement that in the case of more than 2 months rental default the rent can be collected through direct debit (SEPA Lastschrift)
. the tenant's net income and possessions should be such that the rest of the rent loss can be collected by the courthouse executioner (Gerichtsvollzieher) through salary constraints or through confiscation of goods and money.

3. If it comes to eviction choose the so called Berliner Räumung. A property manager that is working for me now almost gave me a heart attack this week when he told me an eviction in Germany costs about 6000 euros. What???????? It seems he was referring to the traditional eviction that includes getting all the stuff out of the house and into custody. Since the legal reforms of 2013 there is now the Limited Eviction (beschränkte Räumung) which means: tenant goes out, stuff stays in. This type of eviction is far cheaper (in the order of 100 - 200 euros) and only takes a court executioner and a key service (Schlösseldienst) to force the door open and change the locks.

Besides these tips I learned that much depends on the property manager (Mietverwalter). While my first Mietverwalter was corrupt as hell, I now have a guy that is already working for me for nothing just to see if he can fix the situation. Another one comes recommended by a lot of owners and seems to working miracles with cases just like mine. So there you go.

In the long run I see a huge market for self help information products tailored to Germany property owners. All the advice they are getting now seems to come from Anwälte and professors who don't own property themselves. They're amateurs quoting from theory.

I've read 5 or 6 of their books and they seem to be more involved in scaring the reader and belittling him than in giving useful advice, let alone creative ideas. This is a giant opportunity for a provider of information products which is my main business.

Wow that's a lot of useful information! Being a foreigner in Germany I am a tenant myself and I see some of these ideas in contracts - however as a solvent paying tenant I have never had an opportunity to see what they are for :) I wonder why you have chosen Emden to invest, a colleague of mine had bought a flat in Bremen and it was a huge loss over the time (value loss + no tenant). Do you have experience in buying real estate in forced auctions (Zwangsversteigerung)?

Concerning the business idea about self help books - considering the limited target group a seminar or webinar or access to a content system seems to me to be more profitable.
 

H. Palmer

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Wow that's a lot of useful information! Being a foreigner in Germany I am a tenant myself and I see some of these ideas in contracts - however as a solvent paying tenant I have never had an opportunity to see what they are for :) I wonder why you have chosen Emden to invest,

Basically because I had to start somewhere. Emden is in Ost Friesland which is where we go on holiday each winter so I knew the region. The alternative was the Ruhr area which is somewhat closer to home. But the process of buying a house in Germany is very drawn out and this broker in Ost Friesland was the first and fastest. However, the broker in the end also became the property manager - as a rookie I didn't know anyone else who could do this - and it turned out it was a totally corrupt company with a parasitic business model.

Selling apartments with extremely high utility bills is part of their business model. To cover up the high Nebenkostenabrechnung they whited out whole parts of the yearly house bill and so they sold the property on the basis of falsified documents to me.

In theory the tenant is responsible for his own energy consumption but it turned out he was unable to pay this from his salary. The broker/property manager knew this.

Their whole intention was that the new owner (me) after a while would give up and sell the place back to the same broker for a very low price. To achieve this, they tried to put a provision in the Purchase Agreement (Kaufvertrag) that they would have the first right of purchase in case I got the idea to get rid of the property.

Luckily I didn't fell for that but many of the German clients of this broker who mostly come out of the Ruhr area didn't notice this provision and paid for their mistake dearly.

So their business model is to buy distressed properties at extremely low prices because the owner can't wait to get rid of them. Then they have first right of purchase. The reason the owner wants to sell the property is engineered by the broker himself (falsified documents). This broker of course has a very bad reputation but as I learned he has all the lawyers in the region in his pocket.

a colleague of mine had bought a flat in Bremen and it was a huge loss over the time (value loss + no tenant).

Well, the value loss is the least of my worries as a RE investor. I bought the house at an extremely low price. At the owner's meeting last June some of the owners urged for more investment in the apartment building in order to generate price appreciation. I remarked in my best German that you can't eat appreciation and everybody was in stitches.

Do you have experience in buying real estate in forced auctions (Zwangsversteigerung)?

I looked into this and someday I will probably want to do this. But it adds an extra layer of complexity. And from what I have learned so far there is most of times a reason that properties are cheap. You have to know the reason why. The last thing you want is inherit the reason for the sale from the last owner. Under German law as I learned you really want to know the tenant situation because this makes or breaks the investment.

Concerning the business idea about self help books - considering the limited target group a seminar or webinar or access to a content system seems to me to be more profitable.

I haven't done in depth market research here, but Germany has 83 million people and it's a country where investing in property is seen widely as a good investment, despite all the legal difficulty. Contrary to the Netherlands where nobody is doing it, except in student housing.

If only 1 percent of Germans is doing it or considering it, that's still 800.000 people. For me I see huge potential because this type of specialized financial information is exactly what I'm good at. I can envision a lot of different information products of different media types.

On top of that I'll probably be the only one that provides information explicitly meant to help the customer with his problem. The type of books and newsletters that the German professors and lawyers are putting out are by and large very negative and problem oriented.
These so called experts are not part of the solution, but part of the problem.

What the German property owners need is information of the self help type that is solution oriented and doesn't lead to much additional costs.
 
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JulianCarax

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@H. Palmer : very interesting read! I'm a law student in Germany and know some people in the real estate business. To me, it always seemed that dealing with real estate in Germany (especially residential) is a big struggle and far off of being a passive investment possibility due to the constant trouble with the tenants you mentioned. Nonetheless, it always seemed to be exciting. In my home base there is a legend that some wealthy families could go for 100 miles without ever touching a piece of land that is not their own.

In regards to your info-products, I recently started to listen to the German podcast of Alex Fischer about real estate investments (podcast; youtube) and quite enjoyed it. I guess you probably already know him. Imo many of these financial info-products come off as unprofessional and/or scammy, really depends on the execution.

Good luck in your future endeavours!
 
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H. Palmer

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@H. Palmer : very interesting read! I'm a law student in Germany and know some people in the real estate business. To me, it always seemed that dealing with real estate in Germany (especially residential) is a big struggle and far off of being a passive investment possibility due to the constant trouble with the tenants you mentioned. Nonetheless, it always seemed to be exciting. In my home base there is a legend that some wealthy families could go for 100 miles without ever touching a piece of land that is not their own.

In regards to your info-products, I recently started to listen to the German podcast of Alex Fischer about real estate investments (podcast; youtube) and quite enjoyed it. I guess you probably already know him. Imo many of these financial info-products come off as unprofessional and/or scammy, really depends on the execution.

Hi Julian.

I think the problem with investing in RE in Germany is twofold.

1. The law is extremely heavy against the owners.
2. There really is no good advice around.

1. For example, a time frame of at least 5 months between the first non-payment and the first possibility of eviction is unheard of in the rest of the world.

2. The experts think that just explaining the law to the owner is enough. For example, every expert I explain that the tenant is more than 2 months overdue with his payments immediately says that I can revoke the tenant agreement without delay. Fristlose Kündigung.

Yeah? So what? The tenant doesn't react to anything. No matter what manner of communication: his door bell is dysfunctional, doesn't pick up the phone, doesn't react to written communication, has no e-mail. 2 Weeks ago I was standing in front of his house banging on his door 5 times in 2 days while he was in the house. Didn't open the door.

So what the hell do I care what the law is? I need a totally different type of solution.

Then other experts tell me I can let the authorities evict him from the house. Yeah, it costs 6000 euros, but then the problem is solved. Well 6000 euros is in this case not a solution to anything. There has to be another way. Like the Berliner Räumung that seems to be unknown even in expert circles. Or shutting off his utilities, so that he moves out by himself. Problem is that all the gear to shut him off is on the inside of the apartment. And as you know entering the house without permission is punishable by law.

Alex Fischer, yes I do know him. Likeable person, great presentation skills.

What he does is sell the property owner dream with all the advantages, like depreciation and bank finance leverage.

I enjoyed his youtubes, but I wouldn't buy anything from him.

First, I can only take experts seriously who have done it themselves. Who have skin in the game. By far most RE experts in Germany don't have personal experience with the subject matter.

Alex Fischer is an exception, he seems to own about 60 properties. Then again, he seems to have inherited a number of them from his mother. I'd preferred that he had done it all by himself.

Second, I have a subscription to the Gevestor newsletter that also sells Alex Fischer's stuff.

Their sales methods are questionable in my opinion, like always declaring that there's only 35 copies left of an electronic information product.
Then 2 months later you get the same newsletter that again says there are only 35 copies left.

Well, if that's the way he does business, treating his customers like idiots, then thanks but no thanks, Herr Fischer.
 
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s7g

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Do you guys know the German RE expert (?) Jörg Winterlich? He runs seminars called "ErfolgReich mit Immobilien". No idea if they are good, for me the whole publicity around the seminars was too Kiyosaki-like (buy real estate for a fraction of its value) but maybe I am unjust towards the guy.
 

H. Palmer

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Do you guys know the German RE expert (?) Jörg Winterlich? He runs seminars called "ErfolgReich mit Immobilien". No idea if they are good, for me the whole publicity around the seminars was too Kiyosaki-like (buy real estate for a fraction of its value) but maybe I am unjust towards the guy.


@s7g

I didn't recognize the name but yes, I have been on his site a few years ago and watched youtubes made by him.

First thing that struck me was that he learned most of his knowledge in the US.
Well I hope he has found a way to translate it to the German situation, but I'm skeptical.

Second is, like almost all German experts, he sells himself by mentioning his publications in trade magazines.

So is he the real deal or just another guy that sells his knowledge without having first hand experience?

I'll have to do some more research about him.
 
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H. Palmer

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Guys, other names that you should check out are Thomas Knedel and Alexander Goldwein.

Especially Goldwein seems to have made a great book for RE investors, "Geld verdienen mit Wohnimmobilien".

Learn more at Amazon.de
 
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s7g

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Guys, another "European" idea I'd like to brainstorm with you. For sure you've realized that a lot of good (niche) products sold in US are not available in Europe. For some of them there is no market here - e.g. Biophase sells hunting stuff which probably wouldn't find many buyers here due to obvious reasons. But there are lots of products ready to be introduced to the EU.
So I'd like to ask you guys to share your 0.02$ about two things:
  1. Sourcing / importing / selling process from EU for the EU market (we have some excellent threads about how it's done in US, but significantly less about EU). Any constructive input / how-to is welcome. How to start it? What to keep in mind? The best legal form for an import company?
  2. Product ideas. If you don't intend to import and sell it yourself - share the idea with us.
Please be positive. We focus on collecting and developing ideas, not bashing newbies.
 

Mass

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Hello Everyone,

I'm based in the UK and have been watching this thread eagerly waiting for the topic to drop onto Sourcing/Importing.

I'm currently looking into this and have a few trials with it, I'm due to fly out of the country tomorrow so I won't be able to update for a week but as soon as I am back I will be reading over this thread and any others that you create.

For what its worth the RE Market in the UK is untouchable too. A £100,000 house will rent for around £500 per month, that means it will take over 16 years to pay off not including the interest payments. Slowlaners do love the RE Market over here though.

Dave
 

theag

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Sourcing / importing / selling process from EU for the EU market (we have some excellent threads about how it's done in US, but significantly less about EU). Any constructive input / how-to is welcome. How to start it? What to keep in mind? The best legal form for an import company?
This is a good book focussed on import/export to/from Germany: http://www.translinkshipping.de/deutsch/book.html
 
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Arima

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Have people already been accepted in this group? Since I added him on skype and still no reponse :/
If I am not the only one then I would like to start this Mastermind group. If people are interested PM me.
 

s7g

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I suppose we need a kind of topic list. There are three areas of interest mixed up in this thread:
1. Real estate investing in the EU.
2. Importing / selling.
3. Publishing (digital product or content) focused on the EU.

Is there a technical possibility to index the posts somehow / organize the information?

There was a thread about supplement business, I wonder if this would work in the EU as well.
 

Ostap Bender

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I know renting out in Germany can be profitable
It is quite profitable, but you need to know who the real good tenants are.

I take the risk to be blamed as a clown, but from my own 5-year experience in this field, i would recommend you to consider people on wellfare as tenants. You may ask if i'm insane, but i'm quite serious with my advice, simply because you are able to make a contract directly with the employment agency (Arbeitsagentur), which is responsible for the social welfare payments of the tenant.

The downside to this deal is that you will actually have to deal with the possiblity of unpleasant characters (otherwise, who protects you from this, even if your future tenants are employed ?), the HUGE upside is you will deal with a government agency and the government agency always pays the rent, the "Nebenkosten" and the deposit fully & on time.

The only limits to my proposition are the restrictions, which every city puts on their wellfare recipients, considering the size of the appartments and the price of the appartment & of course if the rent, which you can collect from those tenants, satifies your needs.

Only my 2 cents, regarding RE in Germany.

I also support the idea of an EU forum here @ thefastlaneforum.

Best regards.
 
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H. Palmer

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It is quite profitable, but you need to know who the real good tenants are.

I take the risk to be blamed as a clown, but from my own 5-year experience in this field, i would recommend you to consider people on wellfare as tenants. You may ask if i'm insane, but i'm quite serious with my advice, simply because you are able to make a contract directly with the employment agency (Arbeitsagentur), which is responsible for the social welfare payments of the tenant.

The downside to this deal is that you will actually have to deal with the possiblity of unpleasant characters (otherwise, who protects you from this, even if your future tenants are employed ?), the HUGE upside is you will deal with a government agency and the government agency always pays the rent, the "Nebenkosten" and the deposit fully & on time.

The only limits to my proposition are the restrictions, which every city puts on their wellfare recipients, considering the size of the appartments and the price of the appartment & of course if the rent, which you can collect from those tenants, satifies your needs.


Hello Ostap, thanks for chiming in.

No, I'm very familiar with this approach as I've been advised to do this before. Just let the Amt pay the rent and you're set.

Here's the problem. As I live 300 km from my investment property it's most of times not me who will be doing the tenant selection, it will be a property manager.

The property managers who follow this approach are most of time totally or partially corrupt companies.
The people they will put in the apartments are not just unemployed, they are addicts, that's why they don't have money.

One of the property managers that manages 10 properties in the apartment block is known to usher in drug addicts, 3 in one apartment, and let the city pay the rent. It's a matter of time before the trouble begins. Complaints from the neighbours, from house management, from the other owners, from the housekeeper/hausmeister and so on. And they break things, they don't do small repairs.

In the past it's come to the point where the police had to appear in full force and force doors open and stuff like that. No way! And keep in mind that the owner always has end reponsibility.

So I go for selecting the best tenants that I can.

In my case this means finding a good property manager that has a proven system to attract quality tenants. I'm in good hopes that I have found one during my last visit to Emden. These guys have already done a lot for me without asking for a cent in payment. My gut says the situation is now turning around.

The current tenant will probably stay in for a while because since they approached his employer (a move that I hadn't thought of myself) the guy has already produced a receipt for depositing 1000 euros with the corrupt property manager that I will say goodbye to next week (Kündigung) and payed 450 euros to the new property manager, a sum that they promised they will transfer next week. If they do, they'll get a bonus from me without them asking. Since there isn't even a property management contract signed (Verwaltervertrag).

It remains to be seen whether he can really pay his current rent since he is now paying his utilities in advance (Vorauszahlung).
I have a suspicion there is something wrong with the measurement equipment (Ista Messgeräte) that measures his gas usage.
His bill for a 3 room apartment indicates usage of twice the amount that my wife and me use up in a 5 room house.
So his gas bill is about as high as his cold rent (Kaltmiete). I refuse to believe this measurement is correct. On the web there are a lot of complaints about these devices.

In order to insure that the rent will get paid on time from now on the new property manager will try to arrange with the employer to pay the rent directly out of his salary which was my idea as well and is the best way to go forward.

A lot of details have to be worked out but I'm very happy with the progress being made in the last weeks.

However, since you have 5 years experience with renting out, please elaborate on your situation and tell us more!

Where exactly are your properties in Germany? Mine is in Emden, Ost Friesland.
Do you have trouble with the Heizkörper-Messgeräte?

Only my 2 cents, regarding RE in Germany.

I also support the idea of an EU forum here @ thefastlaneforum.

Best regards

Well, at least a section for fastlane localisation.
 
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Ostap Bender

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However, since you have 5 years experience with renting out, please elaborate on your situation and tell us more!

We own a multi-family residential (8 appartments) in the east of Germany.
We did acquire another one this year, with the plan to redevelop it in the next year.
I'm thinking about buying property from foreclosure auctions, but have no experience with that.

To cut a long story short, i did sense a strong need for information about the real estate market here in Germany.

Do you think that there is a remarkable number of foreign private investors (in your case, from the Netherlands), who will benefit from a website, which compiles the main facts about buying & developing property in Germany ?

Your & mine experience will be beneficial for other people with the thoughts of entering a foreign property market.

Greets.
 

s7g

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To cut a long story short, i did sense a strong need for information about the real estate market here in Germany.

I second the idea. I avoided real estate investments here in Germany because the law is not transparent (to me) and landlord-hostile. However if there is a way to successfully invest in RE it would be something at least worth considering.

@Ostap Bender - where have you invested? Berlin & surrounding or somewhere in the sticks?
 
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Ostap Bender

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I second the idea.

First of all thanks for your trust. I hope i can help out, even if i see myself only at the beginning.

@Ostap Bender - where have you invested? Berlin & surrounding or somewhere in the sticks?

Nope, i didn't have the chance to grab some property in Berlin.
I actually wouldn't advise someone right in the beginning, with no further experience, to buy property there, because it seems to me as a pro game of real estate development. The prices of property in Berlin are going unreasonably up, but the rent you can get there is limited, because of the limit of rent (Mietpreisbremse) imposed by the county/city government.
My guess as an little experienced private investor is that your chances to succeed there with no/little experience and not enough money, huge amounts literally, to experience a long streak of bad luck, are almost zero.

Short equation : You can gain little, but you can lose much.

My family did invest in property in the state of Saxony, rather big city, but i don't want to disclose it.
Until now we did have a good time, but to warn you, it was not easy from the beginning (which means the first 2-3 years).

What i see right now is that floodgates are open, money comes from everywhere (i did meet people from Israel wanting to buy real estate/expand their ownership of it) and i actually don't think that's a good sign, but i can't see the future.
 

H. Palmer

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@H. Palmer : very interesting read! I'm a law student in Germany and know some people in the real estate business. To me, it always seemed that dealing with real estate in Germany (especially residential) is a big struggle and far off of being a passive investment possibility due to the constant trouble with the tenants you mentioned. Nonetheless, it always seemed to be exciting. In my home base there is a legend that some wealthy families could go for 100 miles without ever touching a piece of land that is not their own.

In regards to your info-products, I recently started to listen to the German podcast of Alex Fischer about real estate investments (podcast; youtube) and quite enjoyed it. I guess you probably already know him. Imo many of these financial info-products come off as unprofessional and/or scammy, really depends on the execution.

Good luck in your future endeavours!

I recently tuned in to Alex Fischer again on Youtube.

His stuff is much better than I remembered and his recent series of youtubes is even better than before.

He really speaks out of experience and hands out tips that I never would have thought of.
Excellent presentation skills.

I guess I had some bad associations with him in my mind because of the Gevestor newsletter with its negative sales tactics. They also sell Fischer's information products.

Fischer is very recommendable!
 
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