Plots in Cologne only through developers?

On the topic of ads:
I can't imagine that much comes out of it except absolutely overpriced offers, right?

Hello everyone,

so our experience is as follows: We found both our apartment and our current plot of land through our own ad. Both right away and both without an agent and both at very fair prices. This may be coincidence, luck, or something else, it is just our personal experience.

What is clear: ads cost a lot of money, but that is the price for not disappearing under hundreds of ads in the "Looking for" section. What is also clear is that you cannot open your own real estate agency the next day with the response rate.

It certainly also depends on HOW you write your ad. Presumably, a text like "Looking for land, reference number 123456" will be about as successful as "Buying any car" or any other blunt approach. You will have to reveal a little more about yourself, after all, it is possibly about future neighbors (in case of land division) or at least about the new owners of a beloved family property. In our experience, families are welcomed as buyers.

Through an ad in the Cologne daily newspaper, you can reach people who are not power surfers, who are not under sales pressure, and who do not want hundreds of phone calls or letters. Then there is another group of people who dislike agents and want to rent or sell directly. So far, we have never had to pay an agent, but again that may be luck, coincidence, etc.

That is also the compensatory effect of a newspaper ad: if successful, you usually save the agent’s commission. With square meter prices above 500 EUR standard land value, you could even place several ads until the cost advantage is canceled out.

However, the ads have one disadvantage: you cannot place them for just one district, only for larger areas. That means someone who, for example, is only looking in Dellbrück might be better advised to distribute flyers or similar in the mailboxes of the preferred streets. In new development areas that does not make sense, but there are still plenty of building gaps in the old stock, and it is not uncommon that relatives or at least good acquaintances of the owners who still have undeveloped land live on the same street.

I recently talked to a Cologne notary about this; there are still enough undeveloped plots or huge plots with potential for division, even in popular Cologne locations. And what we also see in our circle of friends is that these go for prices fair to both sides in private-to-private sales.

Conclusion: With the current competition for undeveloped land, it may make sense not to rely solely on internet portals where you then overwhelm the seller with 300 other interested parties, but to take your own path with some effort. My personal opinion.

Thank you for the detailed answer. I would also appreciate the text and the name of the newspapers where you placed ads.

Hello Chris29.2, unfortunately I cannot reply to you via PM because this error message has appeared on your profile since last week: "The following errors have occurred The Server responded with an error. The error message is in the JavaScript console."