Finding the right house - but how?

It certainly depends on the situation in Magdeburg. In Leipzig, it makes no sense to "take" a broker. What the brokers get, they post on the portals, and then it is sold within a week. Nobody bothers to send you anything beforehand. There are exceptions if you are on the email distribution list of different brokers, so you see something 1-2 days before it lands on the portals. But that's it.

We searched for 1 year, with the funny thing being that "our" house was already listed right at the beginning and we thought, it's so perfect, there MUST be a catch. Fourteen disappointing viewings later, we found a small bungalow and then still viewed "our" house, with the attitude that it couldn't hurt. After that, the bungalow was history and we bought the house, and since it had already been listed for 1 year, we were able to lower the very favorable price even further. It was without a realtor. So you can search for a few days or 2 years. It's simply a matter of luck. But: if it’s not urgent, then I would definitely do without a realtor! Why throw away thousands of euros when you can do it without? It may take longer then, but there's no rush.

You can have yourself registered with brokers. With the Sparkasse and Volksbank brokers, you usually get the listing before they post it. If it’s something for you, great.

This also works with dedicated private brokers. But there are also brokers, as happened to me, who have little interest in actively searching. "Just look at our homepage, and if you find something suitable, call me..." and then pay a few thousand euros in commission.... These are brokers whose business is so good that they just post listings and wait for buyers. And it seems to be going well. Sad, but true.

We sold our current house a few weeks ago - by chance, we were asked by an acquaintance if we already had a buyer, exactly on the day we published the ad. She had a friend who was looking for something like this. Two days later we promised it to them, they took the offer. So sometimes personal contacts and asking if anyone knows someone are not wrong.

Does anyone of you have experience on how to get hold of appropriate offers that are not listed on the big portals?

Through personal contacts, which do not have to be your own. If you make it widely known that you are looking for a house and your mother then tells her hairdresser, he might have an acquaintance ... Sounds silly, but it works (sometimes).

It also doesn't hurt to subscribe to a daily newspaper (but read it first thing in the morning!). That's where you'll most likely find privately sold houses.

Good luck!

PS: If you don’t want to pay a commission, you shouldn’t approach real estate agents. I can understand that.