While the German real estate market was blah for many decades in a country where most people rent rather than own, the past 10 years or so have seen some huge changes. Germans are now more likely to own their home rather than rent.
So the fact of Germans being renters is still quite true, it’s actually less true than before. And with more Germans buying homes than ever before, the hundreds of home builders in Germany of various sizes are busy building them for purchase.
German homes feature many interesting features and benefits that you won’t find in North American homes related to structure, doors and locks, energy efficiency, windows as well as heating and cooling.
Let’s focus on newly built homes in Germany and avoid older homes that don’t necessarily offer the same amenities.
New homes in Germany include the following common features:
- Concrete rather than wood frame design
- Front and back doors that lock with a key from the inside and outside
- Inside room doors that lock with a key on both sides
- High level of energy efficiency
- Double or triple window panes
- Tilting windows
- Outside window shades
- No closets
- Other costs like sod and a mailbox
- No air ducts or furnaces
- No air conditioning
Below we’ll elaborate on each of these unique features of newly built German homes so you understand what you generally get, from the better builders.
Concrete rather than wood frame design
German homes are built with pre-made concrete slabs that are pieced together to form the frame, walls and ceilings of the house. While drywall-type material is often used for separators between some rooms in the house, most walls are concrete.
Concrete is called Beton in German so you’ll see that word used frequently.
As a result, you won’t experience squeaky floors and it tends to be a quiet home since the concrete walls make it difficult for sounds and noise to carry.
Another side effect is that Internet wifi signals travel poorly and if you have a large enough home you will undoubtedly require a repeater or other device to increase the signal throughout the home. Without it, you will find weak signals in parts of the home and you will get virtually no Internet signal in the basement.
Self locking front door
You can lock yourself in and out of a German home. While North American homes often have a deadbolt lock that can be opened and closed by hand, German locks are unlocked and locked with the same key on both sides of the door. So once you lock the door from the inside of the house with the key, if you misplace the key, you can actually lock yourself in the home.
Front doors are generally self-locking too so if you walk outside the front door without your keys and the door shuts, it’s locked. Having said that, front doors often come with a latch that you can select so that if you close the door, it can be pushed open without a key and won’t result in you being locked out.
While homes generally have a patio or other door as a secondary entrance and exit, misplacing your house key can result in you being locked in or out of the house depending on which side of the door you’re on!
Inside room doors that lock with a key on both sides
Rooms inside a German home come with basic key locks so you can lock each door. This includes bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, basement and other doors leading from one room to another such as a pantry or living room.
So if you like your privacy or just want an extra level of security, you’re in luck. The locks are basic and aren’t for actual security from thieves but they are a deterrent.
And inside doors are pretty solid too. Entry level inside doors aren’t expensive – they start at around 30 Euro – but they can’t be kicked in like cheap, thin plywood type doors you might have in an older North American home.
High level of energy efficiency
German homes tend to be very energy efficient. The highest rated energy efficient homes currently are rated at what is known as KfW 40 Plus, KfW 40 and KfW 55. The KfW 40 Plus home uses at most 40% of the energy that a baseline, less efficient home requires. A KfW 40 home uses 40% of the energy of a baseline home and KfW 55 uses 55% of the energy used by a baseline home. The lower the number, the more efficient the home is.
The KfW rating also takes into account the transmission heat loss and structural thermal insulation of the home too.
When searching for a new home, look for the German agency called KfW
because they offer advice and incentives you may take advantage of. They currently have a loan program that offers new home buyers a low interest rate and loan that is only partially paid back when you purchase a qualifying energy efficient house. My wife and I bought a new home in Germany that is KfW 55 efficient and received a 120,000 Euro mortgage. We will end up only paying back 102,000 Euro, receiving an 18,000 Euro credit as a result.
A home that is KfW 40 Plus or KfW 40 rated would result in an even larger credit for the home buyer.
Modern homes in Germany may include solar panels on the roof to power the water heater and/or heating system. They also tend to come with water softeners to deal with the notoriously hard water throughout Germany but also because it can result in less detergents and soaps used within the home in addition to being easier on the inside of pipes.
Double or triple window panes
Long gone are the days of single window panes in Germany. Now you’re more likely to find double and triple panes which not only helps with energy efficiency but keeps the noise out too.
While a double pane window is excellent, a triple pane offers one extra layer to provide better insulation and soundproofing among other benefits.
While many German cities don’t experience winters as bad as say the northern states or in Canada, sub zero weather does occur and this solid window pane design offers heating and cooling cost savings to the homeowner.
These windows keep the heat in during the summer and keeps the cool air out during the winter.
Tilting windows
Tilt and turn windows are very common in Germany and throughout Europe. Windows in Germany have locking mechanisms with a pull and twist handle and possibly (in some cases) a key lock.
The windows have two methods of opening:
- You can open the window just like you’d open a door. It swings open for full air flow.
- You can tilt the window backwards for some air flow but the window is still largely closed.
To operate the windows, the handle of the window faces downwards when locked. When you turn the handle 90 degrees, it opens the door completely like a door. When you turn the handle an additional 90 degrees so that the handle is now facing up towards the sky, the tilt function is now available.
German windows tend to be quite heavy and expensive which probably helps to explain why they haven’t caught on in North America.
Outside window shades
German houses have electric (modern homes) or manual (older homes) outside winter shades called Rouladen in the German language. Electric shades are operated from inside the home but are actually located on the outside of the home and roll up and down as needed.
At night and when on holiday, homeowners tend to close the shades completely to the point where it will completely darken a room while also providing some level of privacy and possibly security. You cannot look into a home with the shades completed closed.
During the day, you can open and close the shades as needed to either let light in or keep heat out. In the hot summer, the Rouladen does a remarkable job of reflecting the sun’s rays as they tend to be white, a color well-known for light reflection.
Tip: If you close the shades but stop it off before they completely close, the slats will allow some light through, often enough during the day that you don’t need to use a light in that room.
No closets
German homes have no closets built in. Not a single one. Since the homes are concrete-based, even bedrooms don’t come with closets of any kind. A bedroom is typically made with four straight walls with a door.
Instead, you need to purchase a Kommode (the word “closet” in German) from a store like Segmüller, XXXL or IKEA and assemble it yourself to store your clothes, coats, etc.
Depending on your family size, you’ll probably have to purchase a closet for each bedroom and coatroom.
Other extra costs like sod and a mailbox
Don’t forget to budget for extra costs that a new German home may not include. Your home may or may not come with a mailbox. Not a huge expense but it does cost money and given the style of mailboxes they have, you’ll either have to do it yourself or pay someone to install it.
While you can use a drill and add a mailbox directly outside the house, your house design might warrant putting one at the end of your driveway which typically means buying a box on metal legs and using concrete to hold the legs in place.
The bigger extra cost however might be sod. Your builder may deliver your home standard with soil and leave the lawn to you. We paid 6,000 Euro for a lawn and garden package which included sod, stones and other materials.
One neighbor didn’t buy the lawn package from the same builder and got their house delivered with a pit in the front and backyard that they had to fill with soil and then sod, at their expense.
No air ducts or furnaces
German homes don’t have air ducts for air conditioning or heating and generally use wall-mounted electric water heaters and more recently, heated floors. That means furnaces aren’t widely used here either.
A furnace tends to dry out the air and if you have allergies, they can be problematic and you may be forced to buy an upgraded unit or at a minimum, a good quality furnace filter to filter out allergens. As such, I have found that maintaining and controlling humidity in a German home is easier than a North American one with air ducts and furnace.
The fact that homes are built with concrete also means the home as a whole tends to be more temperate. In 7+ winters in Germany, the wall heaters in our rental home never came on once. The basement wasn’t necessarily warm in winter as a result but it wasn’t frigid either.
No air conditioning
As a result of having no air ducts, German homes tend not to have an air conditioning unit either unless you pay for one after buying your house. As mentioned above, German homes do tend to be energy efficient and fairly straight forward when it comes to moderating temperature in the summer and winter.
You can close the Rouladen window shades during sunny days to reflect the light. You can also use the home’s air circulation system to move the air around to keep it flowing.
You might also try a tower fan or two in certain rooms to further keep the temperature down during the hottest months of July and August.
But don’t overlook the Rouladen window shades and keeping them completely closed or at least partially closed as they really do keep the heat out.
Plus, there’s a better than average chance that your German roof – which is probably flat – has a garden growing on top! Not only does the soil and vegetation give your roof a unique look, it absorbs the sun’s rays so you won’t tend to have a hot roof like North American attics often experience.
Final thoughts
There are plenty of differences between German homes and ones typically found in North America. Many differences relate to the design and materials used as well as features that the homes contain.
There is another difference that I noted not in the home itself but during the actual purchase. When you buy a home with your spouse, not only is the home put in both spouses names but the ownership is basically written into law as being 50/50. When you purchase the home both spouses receive a bill in their name for 50% of the land transfer tax too. So in the case of a divorce or selling the house, the ownership is already established at being a 50/50 split at least during the purchase part.