I negotiated it down from €189,000. That felt like a win at the time.
Then I read the documents.
First problem: the rent assumption.
The investment case required €1,100/month as a furnished short-term rental. Friedenau's market for a ground floor, energy class E flat — 27m² — supports around €22–25/m². That's €600–675/month.
That alone was enough to walk away. Then I read the building documents.
What the building documents said.
The seller sent Protokolle from 2014–2023. I assumed that was everything. It wasn't. I pushed again. One more document arrived — the extraordinary general meeting from September 2025. The one they hadn't volunteered.
I think they were hoping the volume of paperwork would bury it.
Echter Hausschwamm found — the most destructive timber fungus in construction. An architect commissioned for full remediation planning. Total cost: unknown. Insurance claim filed, answer still pending. A lawyer had already been engaged because the dry rot had reached the structural elements of the building. I had to look up what Hausschwamm was. Once I did, I understood why a lawyer was involved.
This unit's share: €163.50 — due October 2025. That number covers planning costs only. The actual remediation bill comes in a future vote. Nobody can tell you what it will be. Hausgeld also rising to €143/month in 2026.
No renewable component. GEG 2024 heating replacement requirements incoming from 2028. The buyer inherits this.
This analysis came from documents the listing never mentioned. Most buyers never read them — not because they're careless, but because nobody tells them to, and a stack of 300 pages of meeting minutes is designed to overwhelm.
That €163.50 Sonderumlage isn't the bill. It's the first instalment on a liability that could reach six figures — shared across every owner in the building, whether they knew it was coming or not.
I built Yieldly because I didn't have this knowledge going in — and because mistakes like this one aren't just annoying. They're financially devastating.
Yield calculations, realistic rent benchmarks, and every red flag from the official building records. In two minutes. Waitlist open at yieldly.co — or send me a message if you're looking at properties in Germany.