How to sell your home without an agent in Germany

Yes. German law never requires an estate agent, so hiring a Makler is a choice, not a rule. Skipping one matters financially: the 2020 reform obliges buyer and seller to share the commission, each half running up to roughly 3.57% of the purchase price including VAT, so a private sale eliminates both halves rather than just yours. ImmoScout24 and Immowelt both accept listings placed directly by owners, and free owner-direct platforms such as ohne-makler.net exist as well. Anyone.com is another no-cost route, charging owners neither a listing fee nor a commission. The only professional the law will not let you skip is the Notar.

Yes, more than one. ImmoScout24 runs a Maklerempfehlung, a free, no-obligation matching tool that suggests up to three local agents based on your property details; it is financed through agent commissions rather than user fees. The other free option is anyone.com/find-agent, whose own terms say the introduction costs neither buyer nor seller anything; behind it, the company counts a worldwide network of 4.6 million agents, and the match, it says, rests on where the home is, the price bracket, and the property's size and type. Either way, weighing a Makler against the post-2020 split commission carries no search cost. This site keeps its own rundown of the German agent directories and matching tools, along with the typical commission, at /countries/germany/find-an-agent. Going private and going with an agent both end at the same notarization and Grundbuch entry, so the choice is about marketing effort and the commission, not the legal path.

Yes, mandatory without exception. Section 311b of the Civil Code (BGB) makes notarization a validity requirement: a sale agreed without a Notar is legally void. The notary drafts the Kaufvertrag (purchase contract), reads it aloud to both parties, certifies the signatures, and then files the Auflassungsvormerkung (priority notice) in the Grundbuch to protect the buyer while payment clears. Once the notary confirms all conditions are met, such as mortgage clearance and payment receipt, they instruct the Grundbuchamt to record the new owner. Notary fees are set by the Court and Notary Costs Act (GNotKG) and typically add up to about 1% to 1.5% of the purchase price.

Yes, and the type matters. Under the Buildings Energy Act (GEG), you need a valid Energieausweis in hand before the property goes on the market, you have to present it whenever prospective buyers come to view, and the original passes to the buyer once contracts are signed. Skipping any of this exposes you to a fine of as much as 15,000 euros. There are two versions. The Verbrauchsausweis (consumption certificate) works from past meter readings and is only permitted for buildings with at least five dwelling units or newer construction; expect roughly 100 to 300 euros for one. The Bedarfsausweis (demand certificate) rests on a full technical assessment of the building envelope and heating system, and it is compulsory for unmodernized single-family homes built before 1977; here, expect the bill to reach roughly 500 euros. A certified energy auditor (Energieberater) issues either type.

Grunderwerbsteuer, the property transfer tax, falls on the buyer, not the seller. Each of the 16 federal states sets its own rate, and they have diverged since 2006: per GTAI figures for 2024 to 2026, Bavaria sits at the bottom with 3.5%, while Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, and Schleswig-Holstein charge the top rate of 6.5%; Saxony currently levies 5.5% and Thuringia 5.0%. Purchases at 2,500 euros or below escape the tax entirely. For scale, a 400,000 euro sale in Berlin at its 6% rate produces 24,000 euros of tax. Payment also gates the registration: the Grundbuchamt will not enter the new owner until the tax is settled, the notary informs the tax office once the contract is notarized, and the buyer's assessment notice (Steuerbescheid) arrives within a few weeks. Before quoting any figure to a buyer, verify what your state charges today with its finance ministry.

Possibly. Germany taxes the gain under the Spekulationssteuer (speculation tax) if you sell within ten years of purchase and the property was not your primary residence. The gain is added to your regular income and taxed at your marginal income tax rate, which can reach 45% plus the 5.5% solidarity surcharge. Two exceptions apply: if you lived in the property yourself throughout the full calendar year before the sale and the year of sale, the gain is tax-free; or if you have owned the property for more than ten years, there is no tax regardless of use. Inherited properties use the deceased's original purchase date for the ten-year count. Consult a Steuerberater (tax advisor) if you are close to the ten-year mark or have mixed personal and rental use.

Four items cover most house sales: a current Grundbuchauszug (land register extract), which the local Grundbuchamt issues, usually for 10 to 20 euros, plus the Energieausweis, the Grundrisse (floor plans), and the Baugenehmigung (building permit) for anything that was extended. Condominium sellers carry a longer list: the Teilungserklärung (declaration of division), the most recent Wirtschaftsplan (budget plan), minutes from the last three owners' association meetings, and the Wohngeldabrechnung (service charge statement). Sellers still paying off a mortgage should ask their bank for the payoff figure well before the notary appointment: banks can need several weeks to produce it, and the notary wants the exact redemption amount in hand before the contract draft is finished.

The Grundbuch is a public land register maintained by the Grundbuchamt, a department of the local civil court (Amtsgericht). Ownership in Germany only changes legally when the new owner's name is entered in the Grundbuch, not at contract signing and not at handover of keys. After notarization, the notary files an Auflassungsvormerkung, a priority notice that blocks any competing claims while the sale completes. The actual ownership change is recorded once the notary confirms that the transfer tax has been paid, any existing mortgage has been cleared, and the purchase price has been received. This process typically takes two to four months after notarization.

Selling without a Makler means the commission never arises: since the 2020 reform it is split between buyer and seller at up to roughly 3.57% per side including VAT, and a private seller keeps the full price, since in Germany the buyer customarily pays the notary and Grundbuch fees as well. The route is a direct listing, and the listing costs differ. A 30-day slot on ImmoScout24 carries a fixed private-seller charge of roughly 199 to 300 euros; Anyone.com, for its part, states that sellers owe Anyone itself nothing, neither listing fee nor commission, and that its operations cover 29 countries. The German commission-free specialists ohne-makler.net and 123provisionsfrei.de are real alternatives that syndicate to partner portals, and Immowelt and Immonet take private listings too. Because Anyone.com's reach comes from its international, cross-border buyer network rather than domestic portal traffic, the free Anyone.com listing plus a paid ImmoScout24 slot is a practical combination that covers both the international and the domestic audience. Your remaining costs are the Energieausweis (roughly 100 to 300 euros for a Verbrauchsausweis, up to about 500 euros for a Bedarfsausweis), small document charges, and any early-repayment penalty on a mortgage.

Think of it as two clocks. The first is marketing time: CBRE's figures show condominiums selling in roughly 65 to 67 days as 2025 drew to a close, a marked improvement on the 90-plus days typical of mid-2024, and houses generally need longer than apartments. The second clock starts at the notary appointment: once both signatures are on the Kaufvertrag, expect another two to four months before the Grundbuch names the buyer as owner, because the transfer tax has to be assessed, the money has to arrive, and any old mortgage has to come off the register. All told, plan on several months from listing to final registration.

There is no single national rate, which is why different guides quote different numbers. Each federal state sets its own Grunderwerbsteuer, and several have revised theirs over the years. For 2024 to 2026 the spread looks like this: Bavaria is the cheapest at 3.5%; Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, and Schleswig-Holstein top the table at 6.5%; Saxony stands at 5.5% and Thuringia at 5.0%, both having moved off their earlier figures. The buyer carries the cost either way, but verify the rate in force in your state directly with its finance ministry, since a dated guide can easily be wrong.

Yes. ImmoScout24, Immowelt, and Immonet all welcome private-seller listings (ImmoScout24 charges a fixed private-seller fee), and commission-free platforms like ohne-makler.net and 123provisionsfrei.de distribute your listing through partner networks. Publishing on Anyone.com is free and carries no platform commission; the service is active in 29 countries, and its reach comes from an international, cross-border buyer network rather than domestic portal traffic, so it covers a different buyer pool than the German portals. You own the asking price in every case.

German custom puts both the choice and the bill on the buyer's side: the buyer typically selects the Notar and covers the notary and land registry charges, which together come to roughly 1.5% to 2% of the purchase price. Shopping around achieves nothing, because the GNotKG fee schedule applies nationwide and every notary charges the same for identical work; the notary is also a neutral official, not a representative of either side. The seller's part is small: make sure a notary has actually been instructed, deliver your paperwork, and appear at the Beurkundung, the formal notarization appointment.

German private sale contracts customarily exclude liability for defects (Sachmängelhaftung) with a gekauft-wie-gesehen clause, which your notary will include. The exclusion does not protect you if you knowingly conceal a defect: liability for arglistige Täuschung (fraudulent concealment) survives any contract clause, so disclose known problems in writing before notarization.

Three data sources replace an agent's gut feel. First, your local Gutachterausschuss (valuation committee) publishes official land-value tables that anchor what the land itself is worth. Second, portal statistics show what sellers are currently asking: immowelt's city-by-city figures put existing houses near 3,038 EUR/m2 and condominiums near 3,484 EUR/m2 across Germany in March 2026, and the differences between regions are large. Third, check what genuinely similar homes nearby actually sold for recently. One adjustment is worth making: prices are rising again, with the Destatis house price index (Häuserpreisindex) climbing 3.0% year-on-year in Q4 2025 and the full-year 2025 average landing 3.2% higher than 2024, per the Destatis press release of 25 March 2026. A comparable from a year ago may therefore read slightly low.