Finding the right building plot - Leipzig outskirts

Hello everyone,

this is my first post, so it’s good manners to introduce myself briefly :)
We are a young family (both in our early 30s, two children under 4 years old) and currently rent in Leipzig (old contract, so very cheap).

Professionally and financially we are both secure (almost €6000 monthly household net income), and since children are only young once, we want to fulfill our dream of a house and land (no, not just for the kids ;-) ). We have been dealing with this intensively for several months now, originally hoping for an existing property (yes, we viewed several, but the market offers very little), and have therefore now arrived at building a house.

Our circle of friends and family mostly consists of city escapees who have settled east of Leipzig (in and around Naunhof), and we want to follow. After some sobering appointments with prefabricated house providers (Kern-Haus, Bien-Zenker, Okal Haus), and reading some threads in this forum, it has now become clear to us that we first need land before we talk to appropriate providers about the house. We were offered the land service by all providers, but either a lot was promised and then not delivered, or there was pressure to sign a contract – which we absolutely will not do if the land framework conditions are not clear at all.

Now to our question, for which I hope for a few tips: how do you even get land?

This is what we have tried so far:

- ImmoScout, classifieds – regularly scanned everything, found that hardly any building land is offered there

- The route through the land service of the prefabricated house providers: partially very dubious and untrustworthy, but we increasingly get the feeling that you get good plots through their connections?

- Driving through neighborhoods, talking to people or looking for signs – no luck, no lucky shot

- Old-school scanning the local official gazette – nothing

We know that the market has become difficult “here in the East” as well, and that our desired region also attracts other financially strong city escapees, but do you have more ideas, tips, approaches on how to find out about land for sale or development projects before the big real estate tycoons get their hands on it?

Looking forward to your answers!

Best regards

N.

Nice start N.,
Welcome.
You are basically right about everything. I can’t really make any other suggestions, except maybe taping up the supermarket bulletin boards and following the obituaries.

-> What scared me recently: we hadn’t been in the town/village for a month, but went for a walk again. There was a construction fence with two floor slabs on the property. Previously there was an old single-family house, shutters always down on the ground floor. Unkempt. I bet the old people went into a home at some point... and now everything has been sold. Nothing was visible about this in the paper or online – my tip: go for a walk, look around, research, and.. buy ;)

We were offered the property service by all providers, [...] Now to our question, for which I hope to get some tips: how do you even get access to properties?

Use the search function for my Barthel tips (11ant Barthel), where I have already written quite a bit about finding properties; especially about the farmer's trap "property service" as well as "11ant short sale". Sometimes the links don't work – then you just have to manually change the "T" in "Thread" back to lowercase (the WWW, on the other hand, automatically changes itself to lowercase).

Just check daily, the real estate section of the LVZ is also a tip. Otherwise, apply for one of the few new development areas. Renovating or demolishing an existing house is easier than finding a building plot. The salary is very good for Leipzig, that should not be a problem.

How close do you want to stay to the city? As soon as you go further out than, for example, Grimma, existing properties suddenly become more numerous and cheaper. Building plots probably as well, we had always only looked at existing properties because we preferred to renovate.

Otherwise, there are some new development areas in the region, one very new one is in Threna, directly south of Naunhof, where the construction road is currently being laid. But I don't know how the allocation stands there. It might all be gone already.

In the area, as another alternative, there are still quite a few building gaps, dilapidated houses to be demolished, and plots with potential for rear construction. Friendly notes in the neighbors' mailboxes can help here, where you briefly write about yourselves and ask if contacts to the owner could be established. Friends of ours actually had success this way.

South area also an option? From first hand, in Pegau the next development area is about to be developed. Building plots are not yet being marketed but you can just call the municipality. Otherwise, a new development area is also being planned in Elstertrebnitz.