We own the place we live in in Germany. Its a relatively small place (140 sq m) on the ground floor in a building that that has four apartments in total. The street we live on has four of the same buildings, one next to one another. I like the place. Its only that dealing with neighbors can be a pain.
Our area, the Bodensee, has a problem with housing, both the availability and the cost. There's too little and it costs too much. My wife looks regularly, hoping to spot something that's a good value.
Suddenly something popped up. A single home, not too much bigger than our current apartment, in the middle of Markdorf, for 280K. This is a price we have not seen in years. There has to be something wrong with it. And there is.
It is in foreclosure. Its kind of hidden in the details of the listing (Dieses Objekt wird beim zuständigen Amtsgericht versteigert) I have one friend who bought his place via an auction and he says he got a great deal. I was intrigued.
My wife called the number give in the listing. On German Reunifcation day. A holiday. Surprisingly somebody answered. But it wasn't a real estate agent. It was a call center for the company that does the listings. Any details about the place can only be found by buying the foreclosure catalog (Versteigerungskatalog) for the month that the place is listed. Details about if we could just buy this month's catalog or if we needed to get a subscription were difficult to decipher from the woman who took the call. Very rude was how my wife put it. She eventually hung up.
A quick search on the internet found that only this month's catalog could be bought (~20 Euros) and we could get it as a PDF
https://www.zwangsversteigerung.de/
I found some basics about the process here:
https://versteigerungspool.de/info/20-fragen-zur-zwangsversteigerung.6
Key things are that all the information about the place in question are in the catalog. A visit is in general not possible. So you are buying the place unseen. You are buying the place without any guarantee. Buyer beware!
Let's see how this progresses.
Our area, the Bodensee, has a problem with housing, both the availability and the cost. There's too little and it costs too much. My wife looks regularly, hoping to spot something that's a good value.
Suddenly something popped up. A single home, not too much bigger than our current apartment, in the middle of Markdorf, for 280K. This is a price we have not seen in years. There has to be something wrong with it. And there is.
It is in foreclosure. Its kind of hidden in the details of the listing (Dieses Objekt wird beim zuständigen Amtsgericht versteigert) I have one friend who bought his place via an auction and he says he got a great deal. I was intrigued.
My wife called the number give in the listing. On German Reunifcation day. A holiday. Surprisingly somebody answered. But it wasn't a real estate agent. It was a call center for the company that does the listings. Any details about the place can only be found by buying the foreclosure catalog (Versteigerungskatalog) for the month that the place is listed. Details about if we could just buy this month's catalog or if we needed to get a subscription were difficult to decipher from the woman who took the call. Very rude was how my wife put it. She eventually hung up.
A quick search on the internet found that only this month's catalog could be bought (~20 Euros) and we could get it as a PDF
https://www.zwangsversteigerung.de/
I found some basics about the process here:
https://versteigerungspool.de/info/20-fragen-zur-zwangsversteigerung.6
Key things are that all the information about the place in question are in the catalog. A visit is in general not possible. So you are buying the place unseen. You are buying the place without any guarantee. Buyer beware!
Let's see how this progresses.
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