Investing in Cheap Houses in Germany

My last entry sparked a couple of emails, why people don't leave comments I'll never understand, but anyway these kind souls wanted to know about cheap houses to buy in Germany and why we weren't looking at them. It's a good question, and I suppose it deserves an answer, and since I know my readers are actually interested in my opinions, there are several hundred of you after all, so at least a few of you will want to know the answer.

Property in Germany is available in a variety of price brackets, and in fact it can even be bought quite cheaply if you look around. I think most people would realise that cheap property is usually available in the Eastern part of the country, with excellent opportunities in the Saxony region, specifically in small villages around Dresden. Just today I emailed an agent about a house for only €15,000 about half an hour drive away from Dresden.

The trick to finding these properties is to avoid the English language websites setup by people who make their money selling advertising. The best way to find cheap German property is to look directly at the German websites, for example Sparkasse, one of the biggest German banks provides a property search portal for their real estate agents, and here you will definitely find some bargains.

A word to the wise, many German houses are actually apartment buildings, so do yourself a favour and restrict your search to einfamillienhaus (one family house, which in British is a detached house), or villa. Of course you can always look for apartments etc. If you need help with translations, use babelfish, it isn't perfect but it does give you a basic idea o what you're looking for.