HOUSE HUNTING

Our first stop in the house hunting process was the Base Off- Post Housing Office. They keep a listing of homes and apartments through a contracted property management company that works on base. They are so helpful – but, after a few property visits, we determined that there weren’t a lot of places on the list that we were interested in renting – and what good ones we found went really fast. At first we focused on the small (CUTE) towns near the base where Hubbalicious will be working. But after some consideration of what our lifestyle will be like (namely, me not working and wanting to be able to walk to shops and restaurants nearby), we’ve decided to focus our search on downtown Stuttgart.

Once you have looked at a few of the properties offered by the on-base housing company, you can ask for permission to use German realtors to help you in your search (realtors are a necessity with no single listing service for housing searches). The permission part is important because the realtors charge a fee and, without permission, that fee won’t be reimbursed by the base. So, Hubbz and I are now working with a multitude of realtors, searching for a place to live. It’s feast or famine when it comes to whether they will return our calls - and when they do, we’re rolling the dice on whether or not we can communicate!

Typical German apartments do not come equipped with KITCHENS (!?!), light fixtures or closets. Families move into apartments with their own sinks, cabinets, dishwashers, etc and use wardrobes for closets (And I always wondered why the Ikea catalog had these items so heavily featured). It’s a little surreal to walk into an apartment with an (always tiny) kitchen that consists of nothing but pipe fittings and wires for lighting sticking out from the walls! Small bedrooms feel a lot smaller when space is occupied by big wall units for hanging up your clothes.
The typical deposit for an apartment in Germany is 2-3 months rent. The realtor also gets a fee of 2-3 months rent upon move in. Thankfully (mercifully) the housing office will pay for the realtor and float us the deposit – else the move in cost would be about 10,000 Euro! We’re focusing on places that have kitchens included and lighting furnished. The Navy will pay our rent (up to a specific ceiling) and a stipend for utilities. As tenants, we will also pay any property taxes and co-op dues for our apartment, along with the garbage, electricity, water and cable we’re accustomed to paying for in the US.

We do our searches online, and then send emails to the realtors representing the properties to arrange a viewing. It’s slow going. Some realtors call within minutes of my email – others after a week! Housing is very expensive in Stuttgart, so few citizens actually own their homes. Many rent for decades. This makes people like Hubbz and I less attractive tenants. Further complicating our situation is that we require a different lease (provided by the Housing Office) which, among other things, allows us to give only 30 days notice to vacate (as opposed to the 90 days that German contracts require). So, we’re not exactly the prettiest girl at the prom when it comes to the tenant pool. But we’re keeping at it, and the places we’ve seen lately have all been good options – if not yet the Shangri-La we’re seeking :)

What does the perfect apartment look like? Well, for us, it will have 3 bedrooms (allowing space for an office and a guest room) and 2 bathrooms. By German standards, this is a palace! We would like to have in-apartment laundry (as opposed to basement laundry room) and reserved parking. Of course, we require a kitchen and light fixtures, unless the rent is low enough that we can work a deal in which a kitchen and lights were installed in exchange for a higher monthly rent. We’d like it to be an easy walk to restaurants and shops – and close to a train station.

The base will lend us any furniture we need, including wardrobe/closets, a washer and dryer, and an American sized refrigerator (German ones are about half the size of US versions). The trick seems to be finding a place with room for these items! We’ll get there…it’s only been 3 weeks :)