At Darna we’re committed not only to helping you find the apartment of your dreams, but also assisting and contributing to the LGBTQ+ community as best we can. It’s for that reason that we’ve compiled the following list of useful resources and LGBTQ+ organizations that you can contact should you ever need any assistance or advice.
As a non-German speaker moving to Berlin, navigating the rental (and buying) market can be an extremely daunting experience. With convoluted-looking terms such as renovierungsbedürftig and Wohnberechtigungsschein, apartment hunting can quickly become devolve into scratching your head and sighing with frustration. In an effort to make your experience an easier, faster and less painful one, we’ve put together a list of useful and important terms to know when apartment hunting in Berlin.
If you’ve never heard of the word anmeldung, you will soon enough. Along with danke and bitte, it’s likely to be one of the first words that enter your German vocabulary. It translates to registration, and the reason for its importance is that it’s the precursor to doing everything and anything when it comes to living in Berlin.
As we discussed in a previous article, you need quite a long list of documents in order to secure a flat rental in Berlin. One of the most important ones which every landlord will request is a recent credit report certificate, or in German – a Schufa Bonitätsauskunft. But because your credit information is so securely protected by German law, it’s impossible for either the landlord or rental agency in question to simply browse through it themselves. Rather, you have to obtain a copy of your own Schufa report and hand it to them yourself.
So you’ve decided that you’re serious about moving to Berlin; you’ve sussed out the best neighborhoods to live in, and you’re aware of how much you’ll be paying (more or less) for your apartment – now it’s time to actually get down to renting one. But what does that process look like? And what documents do you need in order to rent an apartment in Berlin?
When looking for an apartment rental in Berlin, what exactly is a great deal? What type of costs should you expect? And how much should those costs amount to? In this post we’re going to breakdown all of the costs you can expect to pay on your apartment when renting in Berlin.
