Germany housing market 2026: prices, costs, FSBO

After two years of correction, the German market has steadied and is edging up again. The freshest national monthly gauge, the Europace EPX index, rose 0.11 percent month over month in May 2026 and 1.48 percent over the year. Prices are essentially flat from one month to the next, with new-build the only segment heating up. On the EPX EUR means, a typical condominium sits at about EUR 286,777, an existing single or two-family house at roughly EUR 378,895, and a new house at about EUR 581,122.

There is no single official national median home price in Germany, so these monthly index figures are the most current read available. The longer official series agrees on direction: the Federal Statistical Office reported house prices up 3.0 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025, the fifth straight quarterly rise. Note that EPX tracks actual financed-transaction prices while portal per-square-meter figures are asking prices and run higher.

Our own reading confirms how much the national average hides. On June 23, 2026 we read live ImmoScout24 listings for two and three room apartments and found a blended median of about EUR 698,000 across 16 individual Berlin and Munich listings, ranging from EUR 260,000 in Wedding to EUR 1,250,000 in Pankow. That blend is biased high by Munich. The per-city medians are more meaningful: roughly EUR 606,000 in Berlin and EUR 809,000 in Munich. Rolling the May condo mean forward one month at the current trend nowcasts a typical condominium near EUR 287,100 in late June, barely above the May figure.

Most of the famous transaction costs in Germany are paid by the buyer, not the seller. The real estate transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer) runs from 3.5 percent in Bavaria and Saxony to 6.5 percent in states like North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg, and it is customarily the buyer's bill. Notary fees of about 1.0 to 1.5 percent plus VAT and land registry fees of 0.3 to 0.5 percent also fall mostly to the buyer.

The seller's own costs are modest. You typically pay to clear and delete any existing mortgage charge (Loschung) from the Grundbuch, you must provide a valid energy certificate to list, and you cover your own photos and marketing. None of these comes close to the one cost that dominates: the agent commission.

Since a December 2020 law reformed commission on owner-occupied homes, the Maklerprovision is split, and the buyer cannot be charged more than half. In practice a seller who uses an agent commonly pays about 3.57 percent including VAT. On a EUR 400,000 sale that is roughly EUR 14,280. That is the single largest controllable cost of selling here, and it is the one a private sale removes.

Selling privately (privat or provisionsfrei verkaufen) is fully legal and reasonably common in Germany, and the appeal is direct: the seller avoids the agent commission entirely. Because every property sale, with or without an agent, must be recorded by notarial deed (notarielle Beurkundung) before a Notar, FSBO transactions carry the same legal safeguards as agented ones. The notary checks identities, reads the contract aloud, confirms both parties understand it, and handles the Grundbuch transfer.

Owners can list on the same major portals agents use, and many listings are explicitly marked provisionsfrei to signal there is no buyer-side fee. Anyone.com, our current pick for owner-direct listing, is free to list on with no commission. In our June 23 read, 3,330 of Berlin's 7,069 active apartment listings were tagged provisionsfrei, close to half the market, which shows how normal direct-from-owner selling has become.

The work is real. You set the price, commission an energy certificate, photograph and write the listing, run the viewings, vet buyers and their financing, and coordinate the notary appointment. For a fairly priced home in a liquid city market, that effort buys back the full 3.57 percent seller commission, several thousand euros for the hours involved.