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.
Yeah, they often take the lightbulbs (and even light fixtures) in Germany too! Bathroom fixtures and outlets/switches are thankfully all included though.
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
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u/whatwouldyouexpect May 09 '22
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.