Selling your property

Selling your property successfully requires a structured approach. In addition to professional real estate expertise, plenty of time is required and of course the extra support of targeted advertising. Drawing on our expertise and experience, we will ensure a successful sale and we guarantee that the transaction will be legally secure. We will always be at your side, in a competent and professional way, providing assistance, experience and specialist knowledge.

Prior to selling your property, an initial assessment of the market value of the property is carried out. This represents a major challenge, because the price should not be fixed too low, because this could lead to a disadvantageous sale. If the price is too high, however, the satisfactory sale of your property could be jeopardized and the selling price could have to be adjusted significantly downwards, at a later date. In our experience both approaches can unsettle many potential buyers and can cause prospective customers to become suspicious and wonder if the property “has a catch”. Our professional valuation is based on a detailed market analysis and the assessment of your property according to the asset value method or net income value method. With our help, you will understand our method for fixing the best selling price, which will be completely transparent and in line with current market conditions.

Prior to putting your property on the market, you should have all necessary and important documents available for the prospective buyers:

• Title plans
• Floor plans
• Energy certificate
• Calculation of actual living space
• House/Building insurance certificate
• Abstract of title
• House maintenance cost bills and budgets
• Declaration of division (for freehold flats)

Depending on the type of property (apartment, house or house divided into flats), additional documents will be required, please contact us for this purpose.

Marketing your property

We will market your property on our agency website and the most prestigious real estate portals, such as Immobilienscout24, Immowelt and Immonet. This ensures the broadest market coverage, clear targeting, and a good response rate is guaranteed. According to our experience, 80-90% of all sales transactions are initiated today via the Internet. In some cases we can also take the classical approach, and place newspaper advertisements, to target more conservative prospective buyers. In addition, we offer you our services to put up “For Sale” signs on the site or in the window of the property, which can catch the eye of neighbours and passers-by, and generate more interest in the property.

Last but not least, a detailed and meaningful description of the object is the visiting card that your property requires. The main aim of our property dossiers is to highlight the uniqueness of your property for sale. To achieve this, we prepare both the text and the graphic design of the dossier with utmost care. The dossier should contain, apart from the floor plan, a realistic description of the property and its location, as well as good photographs of the principal rooms in order to directly create a positive overall impression of our offer.

Visits

We are specialists in accompanying prospective buyers on visits to properties: this is our métier. For us, it goes without saying that we will put great care into preparing, in advance, all the necessary information about your property. As a rule, we will ensure that we are able to answer all questions satisfactorily, and in a position to present all the advantages, and also the disadvantages, of the respective property in a transparent way. In addition to providing information about the basic parameters, we will convey a certain feeling for the property to the prospective buyers. Many interested potential buyers take a gut decision when they decide to buy, and here we are experienced intermediaries. Our expertise, combined with a high degree of empathy, will ensure a successful initial contact with the prospective buyer.

All real estate sales are handled by notaries in Germany. Notaries are obliged to observe absolute neutrality. The task of the notary is to explain all the details of a purchase agreement to both parties and to answer all questions comprehensively. After signing the purchase agreement, the notary will request a notice of conveyance in the land register. This serves as a preliminary registration of the property in the buyer’s name, and serves as a warrant to the purchaser that the property will be sold only to him and not to anybody else simultaneously. Once the conveyance has been registered officially in the land register and the notary has received all the necessary permits (for example from the management of the property or the holders of a heritable building right), the parties will be informed in writing that the buyer can proceed to transfer the purchase price without reservation to the seller. Once the seller reports the receipt of the payment, the notary will take care of the definite transfer of ownership in the land register. This procedure may also vary in isolated cases and depending on the specificity of the respective property.

All the above-mentioned services provided by our office will generate costs, both for the buyer and for the seller in respect of our right to charge brokerage and commission, according to the normal established market rules that determine commission charges. In the federal states of Hesse and Berlin, these costs are usually paid exclusively by the buyer, whereas in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, the costs are generally split between the buyer and the seller. As a general rule, the buyer bears the cost of the notarial process, and the cost of the fees for obtaining permits, etc. The seller may be required to pay fees for the cancellation of an existing land charge. Here, too, in particular cases, costs may be generated by the other party to the contract.