World Cup 2006 Question

You BOUGHT a house?????

 

Buying (or building) a house in house in Germany is normally a life-long task as houses over here are very expensive. Not like in the USA where you can buy a wooden house for 50.000$ or less.

My advise would be to rent a flat either in North-Rhine Westphalia or Hanover. Both guarentee short ways to many WC matches.

Don't know for sure but as you want to rent for just one month and as it is World Cup time prices could be about 1000 Euro a month? But that really depends on what you're looking for. If you have a car I would advise to avoid downtowns or even rent outside the city, that makes it much easier to find a flat at a reasonable price.


Small map of Germany (Hanover in the middle, North-Rhine Westphalia where the black bordered square is):

http://www.schwatzgelb.com/fanservice/pics/map_germany.jpg

 

I have a great idea!
I'll move out of my flat and join my parents for a month again and you can have my flat.

Of course I still need to convince my roomate to do the same but when I mention the money you'll give us for that time , I'm thinking about +/- 20.000 $, I'm sure she'll be okay with it.

Okay my psychopatic neighbour maybe would have some problems with you but please that shouldn't be a problem, just assure her that you'll take a look at her 40 animals living in her tiny flat and she'll love you forever.

So, do we have a deal??? Feel free to pm me!

 

Pffff....don't know how much money you have at hand, but if you really want to buy an apartment (=flat), you can calculate with roughly 100.000 Euro or less. A house with garden would be 200.000+ Euro. Really rough guesses as it depends on so many factors.

Here are some apartments in Hanover-Bothfeld:

http://www.baubecon.de/bbc_db_verkauf.php?aktion=liste&ort=Hannover-Bothfeld


Btw, I am still wondering whether you are serious or just fooling me....

 

The cheapest areas would be in East Germany with Berlin or Leipzig being World Cup cities and centrally located. The North Rhein Westphalia would be the closest to the largest number of WC cities but is less convenient if you are going to be travelling to any of the games in the south, in particular Munich. The cities in West Germany have low vacancy rates and high rental prices where in the East there are very high vacancy rates so it would be much easier to get a place. Prices for buying houses tend to be high in both regions and doesn't seem to reflect rental prices so renting would probably be better. It might also be hard to resell a home in the east after the tournament. Halle which is a neighbouring city to Leipzig might be a good possibility as it would probably be cheap and is well connected by train or plane to many other cities. There are several other cities in the region you could consider that are well connected by rail and probably fairly cheap at least to rent if being in an actual WC city is not important to you. If you want to be in a WC city I think Leipzig is the best choice for rental price, availability, closeness to Berlin where the final is and accessability to other cities and is also a nice city with a lot of history.

 

Normal contracts are unlimetd with a cancelation period of 6 to 12 weeks. Means you would have to rent for at least 1.5 or 3 months. Of course if the owner accepts shorter terms, you can cut him down to 1 months or less, but that is unlikely IMHO.

Depends on how you behave. As you are from Brazil let me say it this way: German authorities are normally a bit more over-correct and pedantic than in other countries. So if you want to buy a house make sure that you won't disturb neighbours. Btw, a small garden won't hurt either (grilling is one of Brazilian's hobbies, I've heard ;-).

Regarding cities Eastern Germany would be cheaper as Grizzly mentioned. But if you want to be in the middle of everything go for Hanover (well connected to major railroads and highways and somehow in the centre of Germany) or even better go for the Cologne/Düsseldorf area. Surely Cologne is not exactly in the middle of Germany but surely in the middle of the party on and off the pitch. So many stadia and party miles are within 1 hours drive. Plus Düsseldorf has an international airport.

 

I agree, I 'd also go for Cologne/Düsseldorf.

They also really like to party...

 

I don´t think you should buy and I also think, thats not so easy to rent ordinary houses or flats as a foreigner from outside EU, mucht to much burocracy for the few weeks.

Think about a holiday park like centerparcs. Found one in the near of Hamburg, called centerparc Bispinger Heide.

here´s a link:

Centerparc Bispinger Heide

That is high standard. If you are searching for holiday villas, recreation parcs etc. you should google for Ferienhaus or Ferienhäuser or Ferienpark or Feriendorf

 

Are you serious?

 

I mean, if he wants to combine holiday wit WC? And he wants to have a house in Germany.

I checked the price for 1 week in june 2005, it´s about 1200 € in the highest category, called V.I.P Villa.

From there he will reach Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin, Rhinearea, Leipzig between 1 and 3 hours by car.

 

I don't think that its a good idea to buy a house. German bueraucracy is huge so I can imagine that its gonna be tough (if not impossible) for a foreigner to buy a house and then sell it a couple of weeks later. I think its better to rent sth.

 

Ricardo, just recognized you´re from Sao Paolo maybe it´s a good idea to contact a german company in that town and talk with some of the germans working there. I know that there must be some german companies, one I´m sure of is called Kostal do Brasil.

 

There are companies that deal with short term rentals. They charge a fee but it is worth it as opposed to the difficulties of trying to arrange things yourself especially if you don't speak German. In the end the fee is probably much less than it would cost you to buy and then sell a house. Here are two links that also have english: http://www.mitwohnzentrale.de/ and http://www.homecompany.de/ Both are established and reputable companies. I would contact them well in advance because come WC things will be crazy so if you already have a connection it would probably be easier to arrange something.

As far as the city goes it depends on your priorities. It is crucial to decide whether you want to attend a lot of games nearby or since you don't know where your team will be playing have access to each city hosting games. If you want a lot of games on your doorstep you should be in the Cologne, Dortmund and Hannover area but if you want to have good access to the whole country you should look a bit further south. Hannover is only central in an east west sense, you could easily attend the games in the city itself, in Hamburg, the Rhein-Ruhr area and Berlin but the southern games would be less convenient. As far as a city goes I would rate is as neutral, neither an exciting German city nor a boring one. There are some things too see but other cities have more although a few of the neighbouring cities are pretty nice. The more central cities in a north south direction are Frankfurt and Leipzig both of which have very good rail connections. Frankfurt probably has the best location of all and the best connection by rail or air in all of Germany. The drawback is that this is a very expensive city with very few appartments available and also one of the least interesting cities in Germany in my opinion (financial capital of Germany with lots of business types and most of the old buildings were destroyed in the war). If price is no option and transportation is your biggest concern this may be your number one choice. Leipzig is the cheaper alternative to Frankfurt and a more fun and interesting city. It is advantageous for Berlin, Nurnberg, Munich, Frankfurt, Kaiserslautern, Hannover and its own games. No city is really far away but it is less advantageous for Rhein-Ruhr games and Hamburg. Leipzig is one of the best party cities in Germany and has a lot to see culturally particularly if you love music and Bach. Nearby Dresden is certainly worth a trip and Prague is not too far either. Cologne is also well connected to many cities and advantageous for the north and Rhein-Ruhr areas and not so bad for the south. The problem here is again the cost and appartment availability. Cologne is also a party city and although my personal opinion is the most of the city is pretty ugly, it does feature a few of Germany's most beautiful sites of which the Cathedral is the most impressive and one of the most beautiful churches in the world. Munich and Hamburg would be interesting places to stay as cities themselves both having an interesting history and being great party places. The drawback here is again price and that they are the least convenient as far as visiting other locations. Berlin is also a very interesting city with still some reasonable rents in East Berlin and while not the best location still not so bad as far as accessing other cities. I guess every city has its drawbacks and one has to set ones priorities.

A short list of cities by category:

Central and transport advantages:
1. Frankfurt
2. Leipzig or Cologne
3. Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen or Kaiserslautern
4. Hannover
5. Berlin
6. Kaiserslautern
7. Dortmund/Gelsenkirchen
8. Nuernberg

History and Culture
Hard to rate each city but the interesting ones are:
Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig, Cologne and Nuernberg

Party
Unfair to rate as I have not spent an equal time in each but the good ones are:
Berlin, Leipzig, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich and Dortmund

Expensive (negative ranking, i.e. first is most expensive)
1. Munich
2. Frankfurt
3. Cologne
4. Stuttgart
5. Hamburg
6. Nuernberg
7. Dortmund
8. Gelsenkirchen
9. Hannover
10. Kaiserslauten
11. Berlin
12. Leipzig

I may get some flak from residents of some of these cities as any rating is controversial but it is my best attempt as a non-German who lived 10 years in Germany to give a neutral assessment of the situation.

 

Will I be invited to party?

 

what sort of car?