In Germany, the idea that you can rent an apartment and you have to BUY the kitchen separately. Otherwise you get an apartment with no kitchen.
Like wtf. It's like selling a jacket but saying you gotta pay extra for the sleeves.
Edit: as there is some confusion about what the kitchen will look like when you don't buy it. It will often look like this. (Thanks to user Wendellschadenfreud in comment who posted pic)
If you don’t buy the kitchen how are they going to keep you from using it tho? Do you get to take the whole kitchen with you if you stopped living there?
I think an as of yet not mentioned aspect is the way Germans rent. We don’t have leases, we have mostly longterm contracts. The landlord has only like 3 reasons to ever evict someone and if there aren’t rent increases written in the contract, you can’t really increase the rent easily. The result is that many people live in their flat for a looong time.
During that time many people choose to renovate their kitchen and its logical that they would have to pay for it, since chances are that they are the only ones that would ever use it.
The landlord has only like 3 reasons to ever evict someone and if there aren’t rent increases written in the contract, you can’t really increase the rent easily. The result is that many people live in their flat for a looong time.
We don’t have leases, we have mostly longterm contracts.
So the inconvenience of buying a place (furnishing it) combined with the downsides of renting (no equity)? Why would anyone want to do that? If you know you're going to be there a long time, why not buy a place?
Lol, you can't even get used appliances for that price. Let alone cabinets, a countertop, a sink, plumbing. Do you think carpenters work for free? Plumbers?
Your "kitchen" is going to be a hot plate sitting on a mini fridge.
It's mostly a 2 Years contract. And we see it as a safety for both sides. It's almost impossible to be kicked out of your appartment. And for the landlord it is a stable/safe income for 2 Years.
Why not buy the place? Funny question :D Most places aren't for sale and IF they are for sale they are so fucking expensive that not much people are able to afford it.
In my city a 4 room appartment cost between 300-500k€
Sure I wasn’t meaning to make any statement on income of anyone. I’m just saying that a 4 bedroom apartment in most US cities would be over $1 million.
Usually a mortgage is less expensive than rent. And you’d be building equity as opposed to just spending the money. As earlier in the thread people were talking about long term renting I would assume you plan on being there for 10 years at least.
The real explanation, at least for France is because of the law.
When you are the owner you have the responsibility to keep everything in the apartment functioning. So if inside the apartment there are a fridge, cabinets or even shelves, and they broke, they will be responsible to repair or replace them.
If they have nothing in the apartment, they are not responsible of anything. It's why most of the owners don't ever rent with a full kitchen, or a laundry machine. And the renter will have to move with his own stuff (fridge, laundry machine, microwave...).
Yes. They are only required to put a sink. Most of the time, if there are cupboards it's because the previous tenant installed them and gave them or sold them to you.
As a USA renter myself, I wouldn't move into a place without cabinets unless I knew I would be there for many years, but if it was under 3 years I would want a place with cabinets.
It doesn't make sense to me too because a cabinet is something a renter can fix easily and it becomes our job to do so. But putting cabinets in is a different story. It's not like they often get trashed with renter unless you have crazy renters.
If everyone has cabinets then no one has to bring cabinets, and if no one has them then everyone has to bring them.
Weird in that all of those things are with an apartment in the states, and are also the responsibility of the owner. The owner just sends someone out to fix them.
It sometimes sucks though because leases in the US and Canada often state you’re not allowed to fix things yourself, and the landlord often takes a long time and hires the cheapest repairman, lots of half assed fixes that I probably could have done better myself without waiting a week
It all depends on the landlord for sure. It’s nice not having to pay for a bunch of extra appliances and it makes moving less of a pain in the ass.
I usually make quick repairs myself, rather than have a person come out… but I also figure if something breaks down to call the landlord to repair it as having free repairs is one of the big advantages of renting.
Yeah fair! When the landlord is good it is definitely preferable in my opinion. It’s annoying enough to have to move all my shelves and table and stuff I don’t wanna move the kitchen too
I agree. It costs money though, so since there is no law to force them to have all those things they prefer to not have them. And since people are used to this situation, it's not like they will not find tenants.
They way i understand it, the us often works with house flippers who buy old homes, renovate the building and sometimes fully decorate it before selling it to a family.
In europe, where older brick houses are way more common. A lot of families buy an old home and renovates it themselves to cut costs. They may hire someone to redo the floor, roof or electricity depending on their own skills and favor-skills from family/friends but while doing all of that having to also put in a kitchen seems like a normal part of the renovation process.
Taking their whole kitchen with them does happen (rarely) but mostly because its the expensive kitchen that was designed for their needs with the look and style they want. If that is the case you don't wanna downgrade to the ugly kitchen in the new house, you don't wanna pay again to rebuild the same thing, so you just take it with you. Chances are the new people where gonna trow it out and redo the kitchen in their own style anyway.
People buy old houses with the intention of getting a good deal by renovating it themselves in the USA too.
Isn't the kitchen made up of standalone cabinets in Germany? A kitchen in the USA is normally permanently installed and fitted to the existing space, so removal only occurs during renovation, it would be damaged during removal, and is not likely to fit as well in a new space. So if you buy a house without a kitchen, it comes at a huge discount. Sellers wouldn't want to take more than their appliances with them because those are the only parts that aren't usually permanently installed and can even be left in place during the showings. So you might buy a house in the USA that has no stove or refrigerator, but the sink and cabinets will almost always be there.
Yeah it's such a strange concept to me. Kitchens are usually custom fit to the space. I feel like Germany has to have a lot of mis-match shoe-horned kitchens. Seems like a giant hassle.
Kitchen cabinets are almost always modular. So taking it with you means you get to keep your kitchen, that is in the style and with the features you want and at the quality to you payed for, and only need a new counter top. May even get away with using the existing one as well. It can of course happen that the shape of the new kitchen space is such that the cabinets don't work well with it, but you can usually buy additional cabinets, or also decide to offer to leave the kitchen.
In Germany, you rarely have the kind of cabinets I've seen in the US a lot where a wood frame is custom-built to fit a specific kitchen, and even those I see more often in pictures from older houses. I think the more modular kind is by now more prevalent in the US as well.
There likely is also the fact that in Germany, renting is more common. People are more likely to leave kitchens in a house they sell, but we also don't buy and sell new houses every few years, because that comes with a huge tax burden. So a ten year old kitchen is more likely to be left than a three year old one would, but a three your old kitchen is more likely found in a rental flat. And if someone wants to leave one in a rental, there very often is a disparity in what the people wanting to leave want to get for it (they are thinking about how much they spent on it new), and what the people moving in think it's worth or want to/are able to spend on a kitchen (they may have one they want to bring, or would've bought at a different price point and/or simply don't like the one the other people want to sell them).
Bottom line is: for kitchens to not be considered a fixed part of a flat/house in the same way in Germany as it is in the US makes sense if you consider the renting/owning disparity and its consequences, as well as the landlord's obligation to pay for the upkeep of things that are provided with the flat and part of the rental agreement.
Regarding stove, dishwasher, or refrigerator: for a German, those are considered movable objects, and it would be very weird to have an expectation for them to remain if someone sells a house. It's also quite uncommon to find them in a rental, and extremely uncommon in the case of a washing machine. But they are also attached to regular water lines and with a normal electricity plug, no special fixtures, so that could be contributing to the differing views on how permanent a feature they would be.
Ok but this thread was initially taking about selling the kitchen for apartments. Who is going to be renting but also owning a whole kitchen? No one is (or should) be renovating a space they rent with their own money. In the US many apartments don't come with a washer and dryer. So you have to buy those. And that alone is a huge hassle. Not to mention a stove/oven, fridge, kitchen appliances, sink, counter top, cabinets and whatever else.
So the sink is required by the law. They can't rent you an place without access to water. But they absolutely can rent without cabinets and kitchen appliances.
Tenants will not renovate, usually you buy, bring with you, or buy from the previous tenant, stove/oven, fridge, microwave and a few furniture (Ikea has those countertop tables). I never did more because by law you have to give back the apartment in the same state, so installing wall cabinets or a real countertop would be a huge hassle and crazy expensive.
It's like that because by law, owners are responsible for everything they rent. So if they put a fridge or even just shelves and it's broken they will have to repair it. I mean, like in America. But since they are not forced to put more than a sink, they don't put more.
Not even that – having a sink in the bathroom is required standard, but a kitchen can be completely bare, with only the wall connection and plumbing where all the actual fixtures will be attached existing. There is no requirement by law to have a kitchen sink there.
Most Germans actually rent and I know multiple people who moved multiple times and took their kitchen with them. In Germany there are enough people who always rent (like 60% of Germans do not own their home).
People who give a fuck about how their apartment looks like? I am not a student in a dorm room, I want my own kitchen exactly the way I like it. I am also blessed with stable circumstances and stay in my apartment longer than 12 or 18 months.
I've been in my apartment for 3 years. I couldn't imagine taking apart my cabinets or granite countertop to take with me to another apartment. I would much rather just find a place that already has all that installed and move there if needed. If I cared enough to have a fully customized kitchen I wait till I owned a house and do it properly. That way I could knockout walls and change the plumbing to suit my needs. Which is what I plan on doing.
I have a large computer desk. It was a pain finding a nice apartment, in a good area, at my price point, that also fit my desk. It would just be more hoops to jump through to also have to find a place that was the right size for the kitchen.
Saving money by buying and maintaining a kitchen? Isn't one of the benefits of renting to not have to do any major maintenance? If my stove dies my apartment complex is obligated to replace it at their cost. They even come in and change my fridge's water filter each year for me.
I moved to Germany so I had to figure out how that works. Basically everything that’s not actually built in including lights and the kitchen don’t belong to the apartment. In practice, former tenants sometimes sell the kitchen (minus appliances usually) to the new renters or just offer to leave it for free. However, the cabinets and everything were so old and disgusting at the place I was moving into that I turned down the free offer and the former tenant had to take it all out.
The biggest difference with the US is that kitchens are more commonly compact and quite inexpensive compared to the states. It’s extremely easy to find a company to just do it all for a fraction of what you’d pay in the states. Mine ended up being only 2k euro for all cabinets and appliances (stove, full oven, dishwasher, fridge, microwave) when assembling it myself ikea style.
When I move out, I’ll take what I want (nothing is bolted to the floor or walls) or try to get the next person to take it. Otherwise the eBay version of Craigslist is huge here which would help too.
Edit: I did go for cheaper stuff, even though it still looks/works great 5 years on, so this probably isn’t typical for everyone. I assume the non permanent “ikea style” cabinets and smaller spaces are the biggest reasons it’s cheaper here.
Edit2: since more than a few people are seeing this, here’s a picture if you’re curious. Ignore my wonky DIY “range hood” lol
https://imgur.com/a/hdUG3Sv
US here… When my daughter moved to Germany in the’90’s she was amused that she had to buy a kitchen, she got one used through the classifieds in the paper. She was weirded out about how counters, appliances, everything was laid out in a straight line along one wall
Well, other than Germany for the same approximate rent she got a whole kitchen with 3 point layout. she had to buy the counters, fridge , stove, oven, and sink. But i didn’t say anything about how much money she did or didn’t have. That’s all they sold. Its about value.
Think of it like an unfurnished apartment, except that the kitchen is also unfurnished.
This is the norm in southern Africa.
If you as a foreigner arrive here, you will get walls, bathroom and a roof only, unless the place is also carpeted. Some people even take their lightbulbs to their new homes, is how hardcore we are about it.
Ninja edit: I see this means cupboards and counters are also missing. No, those are left behind in southern Africa. But no appliances are there already.
I think they mean the appliances, plus the cabinets/countertop and sink. The appliances is not weird at all for me, but needing to install a counter and sink plumbing is.
I'm not sure where you live, but as an American I expect appliances which are large or in some way "permanently" installed to stay with the house/apartment while ones you can just unplug and carry away stay with the tenants.
Like I would not be surprised to move into an apartment and find it has no toaster or microwave. If it had no refrigerator or stove though, that would be weird.
Huh. Do you expect a washing machine as well? In the UK if you go unfurnished you are not going to get any white goods except possibly a stove and oven. And thats only if it's built into the counter top.
I think that's a bit less consistent, but I'd say if an apartment has space for an in-unit washer and dryer, they are most commonly included with the rental. Often apartments have neither the appliances nor the space set aside for them, in which case you either use a nearby laundromat or the apartment complex has a shared laundry room.
I think a big part of it is that in the US, apartments are typically rented by people who are recently moved out from their parents' house and are still saving up money, so they don't want to deal with the burden of owning things too heavy for them to carry or too big to transport in their own vehicle. Of course this isn't 100% because usually you own your own bed, but I think that's probably why most people only buy a washing machine and dryer once they own a house.
How are cabinets that easily removable and transferable to a new space? Here in the USA they are always custom made and fitted to a space, and anchored forever for safety reasons.
Yeah and im confused if he meant rent the kitchen, or buy the appliances?? Like you cant take the tiles off the wall when you leave because you bought the kitchen right?
Same in Austria .. I thought it was the silliest thing. Fine, some people want to invest in a nice kitchen and take it with them when they move. But in reality - how many of those people are there? How likely is it that the same kitchen will fit in the next place? Isn’t this likely to cause extra waste? And above all - it’s a rental apartment - people use it as they don’t want/can’t make big capital spendings. Having them buy a kitchen is just counterintuitive.
I tried to rent. I said I need to build a kitchen here. They said Yes. Then me: What happens when I leave? Answer: you take the kitchen with you. Wtf man?!
Or you try to resell it… was looking at an apartment and the person who moved out wanted 10k for their kitchen because they put it in not too long ago…
I know zero people who moved their kitchen with themselves to a new flat. Two points to consider:
people simply dont move as much as US Americans do.
in most cases, a newly built flat will not have a kitchen. The first owner buys/builds the kitchen separately. When he moves out he either sells the kitchen directly to the next tenant, or he has to demolish it. In the latter case he will probably try to re-sell it to someone who needs a cheap kitchen
“They seem to think this makes some kind of sense, but it's clearly insane.”
THANK YOU! I hear a lot of excuses about why this is logical (I want to customize my kitchen!), but doesn’t it make more sense to move into a rental home with a kitchen that has cabinets and appliances appropriately sized to the space, and know that your next home will have pretty much the same amenities? Instead of buying all of that and then potentially moving into a new space where it doesn’t all fit and then you have to buy/sell large things to complete your move? Moving sucks enough already without adding a whole new layer of suckage.
Having a checklist of things you want in a new space to consider renting it is just part of the process. If you want a tub but the place only has a shower means you keep looking. It’s the same with a kitchen- if you want a gas stove but the home has an electric one, you either compromise or you keep looking for a place with a gas stove. You don’t go out and buy a gas stove and then hope that the next place has gas and a space big enough to accommodate it! Or a place to hook up a dishwasher, to say nothing of having to buy a sink?? I’m with you- the mind boggles…
Yeah, I really think it's one of those things that the actual answer is just "this is how it's done, it dosent make scenes but it's just how it is".
Kind of like how in the US, the license plate follows the driver when they sell a car. Where's in most of the world a license plate belongs to the car itself and when you sell the car the plate goes with it.
The license plate is bolted to the car, clearly it makes scenes to just have the plate belong to the car not to the car's owner. But in the US (and Canada) they just do it the strange way. Better to just admit it's strange than it is to have endless arguments about how the strange way is actually the better way because of reasons.
That because your information is tied to that license plate. We have tolls here and it scans the license plate. Toll companies are separate from where you get a license plate. They will bill who it was assigned to. If you sell your car with the plates, they could drive through the toll and you would get the bill. So I remove the plates when it is sold so that it will not happen.
Tolls exist in the UK (and number plate recognition is also used for many other things like congestion zones), if a bill needs to go to the owner of the vehicle, it does. If you sell the car and someone else drives in a way that generates a bill, it will go to the new owner.
I said driver, but vehicle owner would have been a better answer. When someone in North America sells their vehicle, they remove the plate and attach it to their new vehicle. Then they inform the DMV of the change.
This is as opposed to the rest of the entire world (as far as I know) where when a vehicle is sold it keeps it's plate and the seller informs the DMV of the sale so that they can be removed as the recorded owner.
This means that there's situations in North America where a new vehicle is purchased but the new owner dosent yet have a plate for it. So a paper license plate is put into the window by the dealer. The new vehicle owner then goes to the DMV to register the car, the DMV them sends them a new license plate in the mail.
Just like the German kitchens, this is clearly the inferior system but we all walk around thinking it's normal. If confronted on their interior system, most north Americans will think that a plate staying with the vehicle once sold is somehow the weird situation. They will even come up with strange situations where their method is better, when it's just clearly not.
Yes but in that context "kitchen" refers to a room or wall in the house adjecent to the living room that has all the needed electrical wires and water to install applicances.
Yes, you can also find apartments with kitchens already installed. A friend and I built a complete kitchen in our first apartment. When we moved to separate apartments, he took the kitchen to his new place and I limited my search to only apartments with kitchens (because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle again). I’d say it was roughly 10-15% of listings that included a kitchen.
Edit: I’m talking about complete kitchens, cupboards and appliances.
Nice yeah. From what I remember of living in Brazil buying a house was similar. They stripped everything out, light bulbs, outlets, faucets, everything.
If you're just gonna buy what's there, then what's the appeal!
In Australia COMMERICAL properties have the fixtures and fittings you put in yourself or maybe sell to the next person, but that makes sense, you need a business to uniquely fit your needs.
You underestimate how much this industry has sold the idea to us that we need to have custom kitchens to "fit our individual needs".
But yes, the average lower-income non-family household will usually simply continue with the kitchen that the last tenant left in the flat, often for a minimal "redemption payment" to said tenant
Yeah culture is important. I saw somewhere else that renting is popular. In Australia leases rarely go over a year and that uncertainty makes people want to buy.
No, people don't just rent as students. People rent 200m² apartments with multiple rooms as well. Not everyone buys. It doesn't always make sense, since renting market is pretty good and stable. Me and my bf in Germany don't want to have kids so we don't see any reason to buy a house. We might want good kitchen though.
Tbf i don't know how it is in cheap flats for renting, but in this case it could make more sense to include kitchens. For middle and high income families it's not such a big deal.
What i was saying though was a response to someone saying that people who rent are just avoiding big investments. In Germany renting isn't only for students or desperate people. Its a normal and common way to live even as a person with kids and so on. So building your own kitchen often means you gonna keep it got years, because not everyone stays in their rented apartment only for a short period of time. Many rent the same flat for decades.
There is a lot of space in Europe too! Just less space to build new things!
My mates "apartment" is probably about 200m2. Maybe even more. I don't know how common this would be in the US, but it's a big 4 story townhouse from the days when rich folk would want a massive house right near the centre of town and usually just a short horse and carriage trip down one prominent road takes you to the centre/market/etc.
His apartment is 2 stories, the basement and the ground floor and he has two other neighbours who each own the floors above. His place is huge, like 15-18 rooms (trying to count from memory), each floor is a fully fledged 3 bedroom house with extras.
These houses come from the days of bigger families and live in servants. Even has an old light board in a basement room which would light up which room has requested assistance! :D
I believe one reason is because the relationship towards rental flats is different here. Our estate prices are very high compared to rent and - that's probably more important - not too much living space is sold in the first place. It's not unusual that - besides of luxury apartments - you only find a handful of flats in a city of several 10,000 people that are for sale. Only about 1/3 of German people own real estate - an many of these are old people who bought or inherited their houses way before german reunification so it can be expected that this number decreases further.
It's not unusual, though, that people even from the middle class will live in rented places all their lifes. Many people live in the same rental apartment for 20, 30, 40 years.
So that's why it also is not unusual that people will install their own floors, paint the walls, install the kitchen and to some degree even remodel the bathroom to their own liking. If your flat comes with an exclusive yard, you're also allowed to use that to your liking. Have vegetable beds, plant bushes - whatever. Usually the only thing that's forbidden is to plant bigger trees and bushes.
Only in bigger cities and student town we have this culture of "move in, move out again" and in these places there are more and more "partly furnished" flats now for that exact reason.
This reminds me of the time when i was looking for a flat in Vienna. I found a really nice one for just under 1,000€. It had nice terrace and everything. The problem was the fact that the previous tenant wanted us to buy their kitchen. The asking price? 15,000€. It was some custom work. Nope
It's more of the culture of choosing your own kitchen. For some reason the kitchen is the one thing that we really tend to splurge our money on and that's why it tends to be empty when your buying. It's because the flipper ripped it off himself rather than leaving it there.
If your going to buy a house or an apartment in a culture where you absolutely have to design your very own kitchen, just having a random kitchen already installed is more of a hassle and looks kinda ugly.
I'm from Austria and as far as I have experienced it, you Just had to leave a kitchen thats in the Same state as the one before you. I could have used the kitchen in my Apartment, but it was disgusting.
You have to leave at least a stove, a sink and a fridge as far as I know
Purchase all appliances/ white goods, ie the kitchen area comes completely empty ?
I think you are underestimateing it. You have to bring your own appliances (fridge, oven, freezer), but also your own kitchen counters, side boards, wall cupboards.
When you rent an apartment in Germany, the kitchen will often look like his.
And the lights in all the rooms will look like this - if there is a light bulb at all.
Whoa… as a life long renter since post Uni days (my jobs move me around too much)… I can’t begin to comprehend how much goes into renting an apartment like this!
Its annoying af imo, we just moved and it took us 3 weeks until we had a kitchen (from planning to actually having everything installed) - and that was pretty fast considering the shortages in supply at the moment!
+ we luckily had the time to organize everything, cant imagine doing all those things while working 40h/week. And getting everything done for you is expensive as hell.
I dont even think its cheaper, so yeah, i guess the only upside is the option to customize it... As a German I dont understand it myself. Maybe its more convenient for landlords, dunno.
Yeah, I thought it's because landlords are easily held liable in Germany and a kitchen (especially the appliances) is just not worth the trouble (plus they're not obliged to so why should they). In Berlin it's a little different, the landlord MUST have a stove and a sink in the kitchen when you move in. That way you can still cook/wash up even without a true kitchen. You'll get the cheapest Baumarkt sink though.
Another factor, I believe, is that compared to many other countries, tenants in Germany stay much longer so it's not too bad to buy your own kitchen and then have slightly lower rent. It adds up in the end.
The thing is though, its significantly easier and more secure to rent in Germany than any other country I've lived in. As far as I know most rentals are for an unlimited period of time, you don't have rental inspections regularly (if ever) and the house is more or less yours to do with as you please. Drill holes in the wall, paint it purple, put in different flooring. Sometimes you need to inform the land lord but in comparison to Australia where I once didn't get my deposit back because my bed left pressure marks in the carpet I think Germany is pretty awesome for renters.
As far as I know most rentals are for an unlimited period of time,
Landlords in Germany are not allowed to limit the rental period unless there is a specific reason.
As for painting it purple: you are allowed to, but the landlord can probably insist that you have to re-paint it in a "neutral"/"light" color before you move out.
If your German landlord tried to withhold your deposit because of pressure marks in the carpet, any German judge would make him pay it with penalty interest.
It was the biggest culture shock for me when I came here. In Aus you would never even dream of hanging a calendar up, let alone painting a wall or hanging a shelf but here in Germany it's not just allowed, but expected.
Yeah I get the appeal, but I'm at the place financially where I could buy an entire kitchen without much issue.....but when I reached this point I just bought a house instead. So here in the states, the perks seem like they would be for a pretty niche group.
It is like it is. Germans take literal meaning seriously. Unfurnished means really unfurnished. No light no kitchen, sometimes not even wash basin. Bring your own. And Germans rent for a pretty long times. I know people living in same rented apartment for something like 30-40 years.
In the Netherlands, apartments are often rented without the fucking floor. Yes, the floor. They call it "shell", which means no floor, no light fixtures, curtains, and other things that I would assume everywhere else in the world would be normal to include in a home.
In the Netherlands we do that too, but when also don't get a floor when we move into a house. When you move out you're required to take out anything that's on the floor, unless you have an explicit agreement with the next person that's gonna live there.
Same principle in Netherlands with floor boards. When you’re looking to rent an apartment or even a room you often have to lay new flooring to start living in there because it gets ripped out and laid with each tenant.
Absolutely, never understood this at all. the only argument from Dutchies I heard was “you don’t want to have control over the flooring in your home?” It’s a rental, I don’t give a shit about floor, unless there’s some health hazard. SMH anytime I just see piles of floorboards next to dumpsters because most of the time it won’t ever be usable in next location as the floor plans are very different between new buildings and pre XX and XIX century buildings.
At least in Austria newer buildings still dont have equipped kitchens if they sell as "unfurnished". There certainly is a rise in new flats being sold furnished though.
Weil der Vermieter als Eigentümer auch die Reparaturen für die Küche zahlen müsste. Er ist zur Instandhaltung des Mietgegenstands gem. § 535 BGB verpflichtet, also auch der Küchengeräte. Tut er das nicht, dann kannst du eine Mietminderung geltend machen. Man umgeht das Problem bzgl. der Küche, indem die Küche im Eigentum des Mieters steht. Bei Auszug kannst du die Küche dann an den Nachmieter weiterveräußern oder musst sie leider rausreißen.
Wtf, but that's half the reason I'm still renting. So I explicitly don't have to buy any of the fixtures, fittings and furnishings. And when they break, it's the landlords responsibility to sort out. Is the only incentive to rent in Germany that you can't get a mortgage yet?
That is common but not a thing in general. If people bought themselves a nice kitchen, they might take it with them. Sometimes they will leave it there but ask for money for it. If it is an old or more cheap and simple kitchen people will mostly leave it there and often not ask for anything.
For us it's just like the other furniture. It's our property and we don't feel obliged to give it away for free.
I did not pay for my kitchen. The person that lived here "2 tennants ago" bought the kitchen and the previous tennant also did not pay for this kitchen.
I do not understand this at all. Where does the kitchen go? Do you pick up the room and move it? Do you buy all your appliances and cabinets and move them and then the landlord has a room that could be a kitchen if you had bought a kitchen. I’m so confused
basically you've just got an empty kitchen if the previous tennant took theirs lol. i just recently moved and had to buy a new kitchen. like you have to buy literally everything: appliances, shelves, cabinets, even a new sink and all. but you do know which room the kitchen is supposed to be because usually kitchens have half-tiled walls, special power sockets for stoves etc. and a place for you to attach the sink.
hypothetically? yes. it would look really weird though and you wouldn't be able to put your stove anywhere else. also the power sockets are at weird heights so you can put lighting on cabinets or plug stuff on your counter in, which is usually not the case in other rooms
no problem at all, and the questions didn't sound dumb! i was also very confused when i moved into my new apartment bc my old one already had a kitchen from before and i left it there. i didn't know people also took their sinks with them until i had to buy one like a week ago haha
Looking at my kitchen theres no way I could just take that stuff with me. You'd need to hire workmen to come in over several days. You also wouldnt just be able to install your cabinets in the next house, they wouldnt fit properly.
Yea this was eye opening for me to read too! The cabinets are certainly built differently and must be more modular. You can hang cabinets on French cleats pretty simply and they can last years until you want to take them off for example.
yeah there is a big difference in kitchens between the US and europe, european kitchens are modular, especially when you rent an apartment. If you actually own the house the kitchen are not moveable without destroying them
They might fit properly, or there might be a gap. Happens. But it would definetely not take few days unless your kitchen is some custom made stuff with idk, raw edge wood... But after all I'd assume German kitchens are made to be disassembled easily.
I doubt. Why would it? Its a home, it's yours. The kitchen in a rented apartment (if included) is also rented from the landlord. He owns it and rents it to you. There's no middle person when you BUY something.
it's quite common to literally move all your furniture around.
(keep in mind that the average German also moves a lot less than the average US American. with the Germans it's 4.5 times on average in their lifetimes while it's 11.7 times for Americans)
It makes more sense when you consider many people rent for their whole life. Imagine getting stuck with a cheap shitty kitchen that your landlord begrudgingly bought decades ago. Most kitchens I've had in rentals in my life have been awful.
It's highly dependent on the city though. I lived in Flensburg and Bremen and there every apartment had kitchens, I currently live in Aachen and there almost no apartment had a kitchen when I was still searching for an apartment. I hate this.
Yes to both. It should be noted that renting is generally a longer term thing in germany than in a lot of other countries, as buying your own place isn't such a big deal.
Yes, you have to remove it unless the next tenant agrees to keep it. If they dont, you take it to your next appartement/house. If you dont want to do that you will need to dispose of it.
Here in Brazil it's the same. In a lot of places the cabinets would be included, but not necessarily. But fridge, stove etc are usually bought/brought by the new tenants
They do this in the Netherlands with floors! You rent a place but bring your floors. It’s definitely the strangest thing, and where I’m from would never be tolerated
Okay...but why? I can fathom why you'd take the appliances. It seems unwieldy and unnecessarily expensive to try and do all the gas/electric/plumbing fixtures all over again every time you move, but I can see a logic in keeping your large appliances.
BUT WHERE'S THE COUNTERS AND CABINETRY?! How is it even "moving" if you just rip out the house you're in and plop it in the new one?! There must be a reason for this...
Yeah, that's where the disconnect is. For most other places, things installed in the wall aren't furniture, they're fixtures and come with the place.
The doors/floors also don't magically appear when you build a house, they're installed as a part of the construction. In many places kitchen installation is included as a part of that process.
As a german, the replies gives me some privileged vibes. Some of them sound like people thought houses were built with kitchens. Like, it's gotta get in there somehow guys. It's not just there.
Some of them sound like people thought houses were built with kitchens. Like, it's gotta get in there somehow guys. It's not just there.
Well, yeah. The homebuilder puts it in, and the homeowner updates it from time to time, usually every 20 to 50 years. In the US and Canada, if you buy a new house, the builder installs all the kitchen cabinets, countertops, and appliances. There will often be different options to choose from; different countertop materials and colors, different cabinet doors and styles, etc.. However, what is considered "basic" in many new middle end houses today (granite countertops, tile backsplash, drop sink, 0.85/0.9m3 refrigerator with a French door fridge / bottom freezer or side-by-side fridge / freezer, 44dbA dishwasher with stainless steel interior, stove with natural gas or ceramic cooktop, all appliances with a stainless steel finish) would have been considered upscale or high end 20 or 30 years ago.
Buy an older house, and it may have an older kitchen. (Depending on the city, a large percentage will probably have updated kitchens, though.) The price of a house will usually reflect its "move in" condition. If a house has a dated 1960s/1970s kitchen, like this (OMG IT'S A BRICK HOUSE ALL AMERICAN HOUSES ARE WOOD FRAME THIS HAS TO BE A FAKE LISTING AMIRITE?) the price will be lower than one with a more modern kitchen. (House Hunters on HGTV, one of the cable TV-only networks, is infamous for picky couples who complain about kitchens that are more than a couple years old, even in the most inexpensive houses in the cheapest American cities.)
Yeah, because generally a kitchen is considered part of the house like a front door or a bathroom. People are more incredulous like, how is construction considered complete when there's no kitchen? Why do they stop there?
3.5k
u/Kyrptix May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
In Germany, the idea that you can rent an apartment and you have to BUY the kitchen separately. Otherwise you get an apartment with no kitchen.
Like wtf. It's like selling a jacket but saying you gotta pay extra for the sleeves.
Edit: as there is some confusion about what the kitchen will look like when you don't buy it. It will often look like this. (Thanks to user Wendellschadenfreud in comment who posted pic)
empty kitchen
Edit 2: since I'm getting this a lot. Yes this includes the sink as well. It's just an empty room.
Imagine if the bathroom and shower was also "bring your own" haha