If the apartment prices in Berlin are too high, Immoscout24 recommends that you think about Cottbus: real estate here is much cheaper than in the capital.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt The prices for apartments have continued to rise in recent years, especially in German cities. Experts say that if you are looking for your own home but cannot or do not want to afford the prices in the big cities, you could find cheaper real estate in a city in the surrounding area.
The real estate portal Immoscout24 has now calculated where exactly and how much cheaper that would be for city dwellers who are keen to move, using a few examples. According to Immoscout24, asking prices for existing condominiums nationwide rose by an average of 17 percent year-on-year and by almost 15 percent for new builds.
Buyers of a two-room apartment with 80 square meters must expect an average price per square meter of 2621 euros, for a new apartment it is even 3892 euros. But the deviations from these average values are enormous – depending on whether you are looking for a new home in a metropolis or in a smaller town.
So if you can say goodbye to life in the metropolis and make friends with the more tranquil life in a much smaller city, you should take a look at the surrounding area, recommends Immoscout24: Cottbus is suggested as an alternative to Berlin.
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The second largest city in the federal state of Brandenburg after Potsdam, with a little less than 100,000 inhabitants, has significantly lower purchase prices – and is just 130 kilometers away. Existing condominiums are offered here for an average of 116,900 euros and are therefore more than three times cheaper than in Berlin.
The alternative to Hamburg: Schwerin
For new-build condominiums, the asking price of EUR 3,153 per square meter is also well below that of Berlin, at EUR 4,709. However, the capital is still one of the cheapest metropolises in Germany.
Immoscout24 has also calculated an alternative for the Hanseatic League: Schwerin. In the state capital of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, with almost 95,000 inhabitants, a condominium is currently being offered for 2121 euros – half as much as in Hamburg, where it is 5352 euros per square meter.
The asking price for a new building in Schwerin is 2,867 euros per square meter and thus 2,485 euros below that in Hamburg. And after all, Schwerin can be reached by train in less than an hour.
For open-minded Frankfurters, a look at Kaiserslautern, 120 kilometers away, is recommended. Because for the average price of an 80 square meter apartment in the Main metropolis of 458,900 euros, you could buy two apartments in Kaiserslautern: According to Immoscout24, prices averaging 158,200 euros are being asked for here.
However, it is not certain whether you will actually find an apartment at these prices: Immoscout24 only evaluates advertisements – whether the property then actually changes hands at the asking price and whether other sums are involved outside of the portal, Berliners can do companies therefore say nothing. But other experts have also observed similar price movements in the metropolises and smaller towns.
More: Living in the surrounding area – real estate markets in the suburbs of metropolises in the price check