how we bought a flat in Berlin, and why we bought a second one
Photo: Stripedcat (taken in a Berlin B&B last summer…)
Over the past two years we’ve been fantasizing about how to furnish our flat…we bought countless books (also more serious ones than the one pictured here!) and german interior decoration magazines, especially during our KaDeWe grocery trips…
So Christmas will be spent in Rome, cosy cosy, lazy lazy, busy busy with new plans for our new Berlin flat!
Merry Christmas!
Here’s another interesting article on Berlin real estate, from The Local and Exberliner.
Is Berlin’s real estate party over?
Published: 22 Dec 08 13:10 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/lifestyle/20081222-16293.html
While realtors worry about the consequences of the global cash crisis on Berlin’s red hot property market, experts argue that flats in the right location should remain a sound investment. Joe Morgan has a look at the situation for Exberliner Magazine.
Ikea arbitrage and metissage!
We needed to give some bones to the furnishing of the flat, so at last I did my Ikea expeditions. We don’t like to live in a catalogue, but the store provides unbeatable solutions for basics, to be picked and mixed with less standardized and definitely second-hand pieces …or vintage, you name it! ;D
I did not care to do some planning online before taking the plane to Berlin, since I did not have exact measurement of the new niche for the kitchen. So imagine my suprise when I saw that in Berlin kitchen prices are not just “not aligned” with Italy (as a friend told us) but definitely lower.
Just compare the same kitchen, say for instance pages 42 and 43 from the italian catalogue and german catalogue … For example, the most basic kitchen costs Eur 830 in Rome but only Eur 399 in Berlin. But for stylish kitchens the difference in prices is also huge! In the Wardrobe category sometimes prices are lower in Germany, sometimes in Italy…difficult to understand why…different production areas?
Well arbitraging Ikea Berlin-Rome does not make much sense because of the carry cost, but our friends in Tessin tell us that Milanese do visit the Swiss Ikea rather than the Italian one…so the balance must definitely be in favour of North-of-the-Alps pricing.
If you want to go beyond and not only arbitrage Ikea but also play around with it and “take the Ikea out” as they say, have a look to this crazy blog…Ikeahacker.
The metissage between old and new is someting we love: last summer, before the refurbishing even started, the first items I bought were some cantilevered steel-leather second-hand chairs…
and…this fantastic samovar, from the russian flea market at Rathaus Schoeneberg, with its porcelain plug and bakelite handles (need to check its stamp though!).
some useful tips I learned thanks to my friend in Moabit and own experience…
a) need a box to put some biscuits in? a pillow? take the M42 bus from Urania, Nollendorfplatz S- and U-bahn, Schoeneberg S-bahn or Sudkreuz-S-bahn: it stops opposite the shop, next to Citroen;
b) coming back: there are always Mercedes cream taxis waiting in front of the store, frequently even mini-bus (a ride to Schoeneberg without bulky stuff is about 8 eur);
c) payment is either by cash, german EC-Karte (debit card) or their own brand of card. Payment limit by day and by person with EC is Eur 2,500!
d) of course you can do some double-checking of selected accessories for bath and house at Bauhaus and at another store, both are on the same parking lot as Ikea…
One year ago we were in Berlin, formalizing our purchase of The Flat. This week the main part of the refurbishing has been finalized, more on this later. In the meantime, let’s have a look on how it looks from outside and how it was when we bought it. Definitely renovierungbeduerftig (needing a refurbishing), but with that Prussian nice bone structure and lots of potential. So let’s see some pictures…
First of all the exterior…a nice street in gorgeous Schoeneberg!
A beautiful entrance in 1914 style, old oak…scent of bee wax on the black shiny massive staircase…
….very prussian!
I remember Mein Mann phoning me and saying: “This flat I saw today…what a magnificient window! No balcony, but a great Wohnzimmer: high ceiling and flooded with light…! Century-old herringbone oak parquet in pristine condition…The kitchen and bath are a total mess, but it’s got a lot of potential…once refurbished…Shall we bid for the newly refurbished 50s flat with a balcony overlooking Kleistpark or this messy old Altbau of 1914 with a gorgeous window?”. Of course we bid for the Altbau! The rarity effect. The personality appeal of the flat, different from the others.
So how did we extract the potential of the prussian flat? Here you can see our architect at work doing measurements in June, as per our Timeline.
As with many Altbau, the Flat was the result of post-WWII cut-and-paste, with too big a corridor, no separate bedroom, and a lot of valuable space dedicated to kitchen and bathroom…
So the Flat had definitely potential. Nice Kiez, nice street, great (recently refurbished) building, and a dusty flat with good bones needing some rethinking.
The entrance is magnificient, with its Neoclassical boiseries…and massive Eiche (oak) staircase…yes, our guts feeling was right…
Eh eh I will give you a few tips about trans-national IKEA shopping experiences…stay tuned!
At the bookstore in the Hauptbahnhof we discovered an exceptional Berlin guide: Berlin – The Architecture Guide, by Verlagshaus Braun. It’s a pillar of our bookshelf in Berlin.
Thanks to this book we were able to understand how Berlin went from trading post to capital at the end of 1700, which development logic drove the decision-makers and how the single villages “melted” into Berlin, decade after decade. We were also in the position to understand better to which architectural fashion our Altbau belongs.
The most interesting chapter for me is the Historicism period, from 1876 to 1918, when Berlin became the political, economic and cultural centre of Germany. The most representative architect of the time is Ludwig Hoffmann, who built in Berlin more than Schinkel and whose motto was:
“All those of us who have dedicated our lives to building are unified by the same goal: we wish to give form to the yearning for beauty”. Cool, uh?
The chapter also explains the genesis of the typical berlinese tenement building and helps a lot in understanding the structure of the majority of Berlin’s flats, with their inter-connecting yards.
“Wilmersdorf and Schoeneberg also saw breathtaking growth in new street networks, interspersed with decorative squares (Viktoria-Louise Platz)”. In the same period also the Reichstag and the Berliner Dom were built. “The drive for the decorative saw a blooming in the city (…) These novelties are often described as a preliminary stage for the Modernist era of the 1920s”.
This book is a must-have for flat-hunters and urban trekkers, as it spans from baroque to plattenbauten, from interbau to Renzo Piano…
We could have been more efficient. Still, we needed to rely upon holidays, availability of flights at reasonable prices and sometimes things just take time to fall in place.
At the moment, we are beyond the 50% threshold in our refurbishment process. We’re thinking stuccos, painting and taps. Next week we’ll see. So let’s summarize how long it took us to get here.
Why Germans rent and Brits buy (skynews)
So how different are the two nations when it comes to finance? The differences between property buying in the UK and Germany couldn’t be bigger.
In Britain, there’s 70% ownership while in Germany it’s 30%.This has led to a property driven economy in the UK but has also sparked the problem of credit and mortgage payments.
Gordon Brown said last year that we have reached a golden age – but it has led to recklessness. You don’t find this in Germany. Germans are a more careful, anxious people, some might say prudent.
SAVINGS
Germans save a lot – 11% of their income which is the second highest in the world after Japan. In the UK, it’s only 1.1%.
HOUSING
In Germany, people save for a rainy day and most rent in flats and don’t have this ‘front door letter box’ syndrome that you have in Britain.
When it comes to mortgages, German’s have never been able to borrow 90% of the house value and barely get 80%. They have to put down a quarter of the purchase price as a deposit.
Banks would never give you the size of mortgages (up to 120%) you got in Britain. They check you are financially stable.
Germans are quite happy to pay rent. The property market has been depressed for a decade. Buying is not seen as an investment. You buy it, live in it and then it stays in your family and continues in the family.
There is so much spare space. Places are empty because Germany overbuilt after the Berlin Wall came down. They have not been looking at Britons with envy. They looked at them as foolhardy.
They were able to see through Britain’s bubble and wondered at a society that could be so reckless. Debt amounts piled up by many British families over the last 10 years would create nightmares for most Germans. As a rule they are far more risk-averse, across the board, than their British counterparts.
Also in Germany, some of the rental market is controlled by the Government. Landlords are not free to charge what rent they want. The Government is seeking to protect tenants against landlords.
CREDIT CARDS
There is a culture of carefulness – maybe even suspicion. At any rate, credit cards have almost gone out of fashion in Germany.
Debit cards are more accepted there. Germans are happier to keep control of their expenses and don’t want it piling up at the end.
Shops prefer debit cards because they are afraid of credit card fraud.
Also, many shops will not accept credit cards because they want their money at once.
STIMULUS PACKAGE
The UK Government says that Peer Steinbruck’s comments about Gordon Brown’s rescue plan is just the German Coalition Government’s view and they will eventually come round to Mr Brown’s way of thinking. This is not true.
Steinbruck’s view is the same as Chancellor Angela Merkel. There is no need to rush to act. There has already been a stimulus package of a couple of billion euros.
What is looming in Germany is a labour market crisis.
Some 47% of Germany’s national income is from exports but they are being hit by the global downturn. Germany has a lot of successful medium-sized businesses but the big exporting ones are not doing as well at the moment.
Witness the dramatic world-wide downturn in demand. If this leads to a dramatic rise in unemployment – especially in the motor industry – then Chancellor Merkel will have to look at either cutting taxes or boosting public spending (like what Obama plans).
Thomas Kielinger is a German journalist with Die Welt. He is based in London.
We visited several Aufbau flats buit after WWII, between 1955 and 1960. They are all neatly planned and very rational. But there are a lot of them on the market, and that we could always find one, if we fancied it. Like the one herebelow, in Moabit.
We felt these flats are quite abundant on the market, whereas Altbau are definitely rare, especially those at reasonable prices.
Sometimes the Altbau is just “old” and not particularly exciting. Sometime it’s fine, but the Kiez is a bit of a social desert. Sometimes it’s magnificient, but someone just snapped it up!
Still with a lot of dedication and patience you may find a flat in an Altbau which needs some refurbishing but offers:
1) interesting architectural patterns and facades: Jugendstil, Gruenderzeit, Historicismus, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Bauhaus, Bayerisch, Gothic… you name it.
2) nice lobbys with big portes cocheres and staircases with wooden boiseries
3) the flats have high ceilings: close to 4 metres on average, some retain the original stuccos
4) iron, heavy heating systems, sometimes with nice shapes, forms follows function etc etc
5) beautiful windows, bow-windows – and BIG ones, not tiny!
6) old oak parquet, or at least, portions of it;
Of course, there are also some minuses:
1) awkward layout, due to the post-war cut-and-paste: in many cases a large buergerlich flat has been divided into 2 or 3 smaller units, the Grundriss sometimes has an innatural feeling, with small rooms, big corridors, odd room shapes;
2) very thin walls were added in order to carve out more rooms out of bigger ones, they have external pipes in many cases;
3) uneven floor surfaces. Nice parquets mix and match with poor wooden planks or are hidden below old carpets. Sometimes the original parquet was substituted with laminat, which is ok for a 50s flat, but looks out-of-synch in an Altbau
In a nutshell, you have the uniqueness, but lots of work to do, and some money needs to be spent on the property.
Still, they did know a thing or two on building techniques, one century ago. Those Altbau which resisted to 2 wars have done their homework pretty well, and they feel solid and glorious.
It DOES gets emotional…if you fall for an Altbau, it’s also for it being still there, 100 years or more after it was built. It’s for that bit of boiserie, still up. Or for those thick exterior walls, conserving so well the heat, and for those thick, solid heating systems, which were extremely modern at the time of construction, and still are.
Photos: StripedCat (all Altbau photos were taken in Schoeneberg)
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