The renovation decides your yield
long before the first tenant moves in.

Between an apartment that is hard to let and one tenants apply for, the difference is rarely location or layout, it is the condition in between. This page covers what a real renovation involves, which positions never appear in a listing, and what to check before you buy a renovated apartment in Germany. It is also, quite openly, a description of how I prepare the apartments I sell.

First, the boundary: what do you actually own?

A German condominium is two purchases in one: your unit (Sondereigentum), which you control alone, and a share of the common property (Gemeinschaftseigentum), which the owners’ assembly controls together. This boundary is the first thing any renovation plan has to respect, it decides what you may touch and who pays.

The positions missing from every listing

New surfaces are cheap, new building services are expensive, which is why the visible renovation is rarely the one worth talking about. These six positions decide the budget, and the question of whether a special levy is coming in five years.

1. 1
   Electrics

   Fuse board, wiring cross-sections, residual-current devices, number of circuits. In apartments from the 1960s and ’70s, the position that honestly needs complete replacement.

2. 2
   Risers and drains

   The vertical pipes belong to the common property. If they are old, the prettiest new bathroom helps little: the next pipe renovation is resolved by the association, and paid from the reserve or a special levy.

3. 3
   Screed and impact sound

   Swapping carpet for tiles or vinyl changes the impact sound. It is the most common neighbour dispute after a renovation, and avoidable with the right floor build-up.

4. 4
   Bathroom sealing

   Under the tiles is where a bathroom lasts twenty years or turns into water damage in five. This layer shows on no photo, you ask about it and have the invoice shown.

5. 5
   Windows and shell

   Age, glazing, seals. Windows are common property, their replacement is one of the association’s most expensive measures, and one of the strongest levers for energy demand and lettability.

6. 6
   Heating

   Year, technology, fuel. A boiler near the end of its service life is a cost position with a date on it, even if it still runs today. It is not in the listing, but it is in the minutes and the energy certificate.

Why I renovate before I sell

This is exactly where my business model sits: I buy apartments with substance, renovate them consistently for lettability and sell them as finished investments. The renovation risk, hidden defects, trade coordination, cost overruns, is carried before you ever see the property. And because I commissioned every trade myself, I can tell you what sits behind each wall instead of guessing. The results are on the track record page.

For German-reading visitors, the full deep dive, including the tax side of renovation costs and the rules for passing modernisation on to the rent, lives on the German renovation page.

Checklist before buying a renovated apartment

• ✓Have the trades’ invoices shown, not just before-and-after photos.
• ✓Ask about the fuse board, wiring cross-sections and number of circuits.
• ✓Clarify the age of risers and drains (common property).
• ✓Bathroom: was the sealing renewed, or only the tiles?
• ✓Check the impact-sound build-up under new flooring.
• ✓Year of heating and windows; read the energy certificate.
• ✓Read the minutes of the last three owners’ assemblies.
• ✓Ask for the reserve balance and any resolved but unpaid measures.
• ✓Check the declaration of division for deviating assignments.
• ✓Carry every renovation figure into your own yield calculation.