Is ANTIFA an organization for ants?
edit: That was clearly a joke, as ANTIFA obviously stands for the Ant International Football Association.. here's several questions I've had on my mind recently, something more serious.
If I was interested in purchasing some property in Germany, what websites would I use to look through what's on the market? According to my research there aren't any restrictions on foreigners buying property in Germany. But where do I find them? So far the only websites I've found look like they were made in the 1980s. Are there different websites and/or regulatory bodies for each province?
I'm not actually interested in purchasing German property (right now), but I do want to look around and see what's available. Here in Canada I can jump on realtor.ca or a number of other websites and get solid listings of everything available - with lots of photos and other details.
Is there something like that for Ostfriesland? It's the part of Germany right by Holland & and the North Sea. I used to live there and I want to poke around the state of their real estate market and see what it's like, to get a sense of prices, etc. Not that many people live in this part of Germany, but it is close to lots of beaches and other vacation-like destinations.. It seems to me that eventually nostalgia might win over and I might be able to join forces with relatives I have in Germany (and Poland) who are younger and are starting out careers, etc. If we could one day purchase a house near the sea in Ostfriesland, that would be a fun little place to be able to visit, as a sort of headquarters from where I explore the rest of Ostfriesland, for nostalgic reasons. Plus we could potentially rent it out to other vacationers.
I am looking at towns like Norden, Esens, Wittmund, Aurich, Westerholt.. These are towns from my childhood. Anything in this area would really qualify. I also would be open to checking out what's available on the islands (Ostfriesische inseln).. or really anywhere in Ostfriesland. Wilhelmshaven is a larger city, but I have memories from there too. It's really too bad there is no google map street view in Germany, it would allow me to tap into that nostalgia a lot more easily. But ah well, I accepted that a while ago. Ideally I would love to just be able to click around different parts of Germany (Berlin, Muenchen, etc.) and see what they've got.
Having said all that... what website do you use to look at real estate in your country or part of the world? I have looked up random real estate options in Poland, but there it also seems like all you get are websites that look like they were built in the 1980s.. or maybe I just didn't look hard enough? Prices in Poland are cheaper than in Germany, and in theory I could team up with relatives to buy something for the family, at some point in the future. I have looked near Zakopane (near the mountains), in my home town, in Warsaw, and by the sea (Gdansk/Gdynia/Sopot), but.. again, the only websites that seem to pop up are crappy ones.
I am also sort of getting addicted to occasionally looking at real estate prices in different places. The other day I was checking out how much you'd have to shell out to buy a house in Manhattan. (It's pretty much what you imagine). If you know of a good website for South America, or Japan, or anywhere in the world really. Send me the link!! This is now a hobby of mine it seems. I'd be interested in any link like that. I can look up foreign ownership regulations/laws on my own, that's easy enough.
Are real estate websites in North America just that much better than in Europe? Or have I been unlucky in the websites I've found so far? How do you buy a house where you live, what's the process? Where do you search?
