The Move: Finding a Home

I'm jumping backward a bit with these next two posts, to talk about the process of getting to Munich.

We have lived in some competitive housing markets before, but our search for a home in Hamburg had been fairly easy. So it was tough for me to relate when folks talked about the agonies of trying to get a place in Germany.

Near the end of Larry's job search, when it looked like Munich was going to be our new destination, I started the online housing hunt. My list evolved into a spreadsheet as we figured out priorities, and where to find the kind of places that interested us within a reasonable commute and price range.

Larry's company offered assistance via an external relocation agent. Perfect. Except that some internal company miscommunication meant she didn’t know which tasks she was authorized to do for us. A week went by, during which we watched the 10-15 options in our carefully culled spreadsheet begin to disappear.

The dreaded screen to let you know that the listing
you've clicked on is no longer active.

By the time our agent was given the green light, we were down to 5 housing candidates, and she decided to “decline the challenge” of finding us a place. 

Which. Is. Her. Job.

The movers were already booked, and our stuff would either be heading to Munich or into storage in two weeks. In near-panic mode, we contracted with folks in Hamburg to make calls on our behalf, to at least figure out if the places we liked would allow a cat, had a washing machine hookup, etc.

During their apartment searches, our Hamburg friends talked about places that needed heavy furnishing--not just the usual lights and kitchen appliances, but in some cases even flooring. We saw some of these quirks in our search, including a place that clearly needed extensive renovating but was advertised as an older apartment in a well-kept building. Like that would make up for the missing toilet in the main bath.

In Hamburg at least our friends were able to go to apartment viewings to throw their hat in the ring with the 50 other contenders in line with them. I dreaded jaunting to Munich to join the bloodthirsty fray in a market where listing agents didn’t even respond to requests for viewings because they had so many candidates.

Then, like a "just-in-the-nick-of-time" movie hero, a new relocation agent called, requesting our list (now down to three places), our priorities, and our price range. Over the course of several days we found new housing options and lost others, sometimes within hours of them appearing online.

But before we knew it, she  lined up five viewings in two days. Larry had to go down to Munich for some meetings before his official start date, so he did real-time photo and video tours for me so we could reevaluate on the fly and make a quick decision on which place to pursue.

Partial view of the living room
in our new place

Hats off to my friends and other expats who have tackled this task on their own. When people heard that we’d found a place without having to go into temporary housing, they actually congratulated us. 

I realize how fortunate we were once again, and how our stress about finding a place and getting settled must have been comparatively small by comparison. 

In the end, luck played a large role in our success. It turns out the owner of our unit is looking to sell it in several years to help fuel her retirement. She was happy to hear that an American and Canadian were interested, because unlike a German renter, we probably wouldn’t be here for the next 10 years. 😊

Yup, that seems highly unlikely given our overall goal to move to warmer climes. But after going through our second move in less than two years, the temptation to stay put for a while is pretty strong right now…