It is not far from Frankfurt, Germany.

I used Immoscout24.de for my apartment hunt. Just use chrome and the auto-translate feature if you don't speak the language. Be aware that in Germany, many apartments are rented with no kitchen included. People transport their whole kitchen around with them to new apartments for some reason. If you need a kitchen, make sure to include it in your search criteria. You should be able to find something nice in Stuttgart area if you can afford to spend a little bit of money.

None of the cars in that garage cost more than around $40k, or around half of the average full-size pickup truck these days. Lol! Mercedes and Audi are basic transportation here in Germany. Most taxis are Mercedes E-Class or Audi A6 for example. Also of note, most of the cars you see in the video are diesels. I think only 3 are gasoline powered.

I would say these apartments are slightly above average for new built ones here in Germany. Overall construction is pretty much the same as most other German buildings, but this building has smart home tech that is a bit more advanced than average. There are others that are far nicer, but I most people can't afford them unless they work for the big banks, which is what drives the prices up around here.

Racist much?

The crime rate here in my village is virtually non-existent. I have not heard of any crime at all in the three plus years I have lived here. Worst I have ever seen in a neighbor shouting at another for making too much noise on a Sunday. LOL!

@@TheAlanFish Wow! I can handle neighbors yelling at each other 😃

@@TheAlanFish what do you do for work and how hard was it to find a job? im looking into moving to germnay

The steering rack had previously been rebuilt. It was replaced after the original, plus 4 brand new Ohlins coilovers and pretty much every control arm was damaged during transatlantic shipment. Insurance wouldn't cover a brand new replacement rack, so a rebuilt part was used. Apparently whoever did the rebuilding did not do everything correctly. The pinion gear was moving in and out of the housing as you can see in the video when it's supposed to spin in a stationary position. As a result it was apparently rubbing on the inside of the housing, creating a lot of friction. The end result was "sticky" steering, especially when cornering hard in the right hand direction. In that situation you could literally let go of the steering wheel and the car would just keep turning as long as you kept the speed up. I had it back to the shop 4 times and they kept giving me the "cannot replicate the issue" answer. Finally found it after it started making a noise that we could track down.

I honestly don't know the answer to your question. Generally payments in Germany are made via IBAN bank transfer rather than cash. As far as passport issues, I am an American citizen rather than German, but I have not had an issue from that perspective.

That's a bit complicated to answer. The short answer is communications.

U have actually really good job sir 😌nice apartment

Berlin is supposedly quite a bit cheaper than where I am. It did seem pretty flat when I was there, so finding a place with a view might be a bit tougher.

Apologies that it took me a little time to see this, Dennis. My apartment would be wheelchair accessible, with one possible issue being vehicle parking and building entrence from the garage due to rather heavy door closures and somewhat tight parking spots. A side door ramp on your vehicle would be problematic unless you rented two parking spots to ensure access. When it comes to finding a place, there is an option on the largest apartment listing site for limiting results to those buildings with "stepless access", which could imply wheelchair accessibility. There are certainly options that could work, but I am not sure there is quite the same wide consideration for accessibility here in Europe in general as there is in the USA. In many German restaurants for example, the bathrooms are downstairs, and it is not common for there to be elevator access. Most buildings here are quite old, and were built long before attention was paid to such things. Hope that answers your question to some degree, and if it brings up any more questions don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks man. I actually just made it for friends and family, so it's been weird to see it have this second life like a year later. I'm about 20 minutes west of Frankfurt am Main. The website I used was immobilienscout24.de, which covers all of Germany.

That would be Miss Abbey's(the cat) outloook on nearly all things in life. She's very much a fraidy cat :)

Not a pro, and no camera mount. Just recorded with my phone and only intended for family and friends.

@@TheAlanFish OK but if you post on KZfaq you are posting to the whole world

@@andrewashdown3541 only reason it was ever made public is because family couldn't play it for some reason when it was initially posted as unlisted. No idea why it suddenly took off in views 2 years later. Any case, if younposted this on every poorly filmed video in KZfaq you'd wear your fingers down to nubs before you got close to finished.

I'm in a slightly unusual situation where my employer pays for my rent. They give us an allowance for housing up to a maximum amount that is based on your pay grade, and family size. You do not get to keep anything you do not spend, it is use it or lose it, so I have a nicer apartment than I might choose if I were paying for it myself.

@@TheAlanFish oh now I get it it’s a furnished company-paid apartment yes they do in Germany for ex-pats on a temporary basis

@@frommykitchenasma7183 it's not actually furnished. All of the furniture is my own, such as it is. I do pay the rent myself, it's just that my employer gives me the money for that in my paycheck.

There is a water softening system for the entire building down in the basement. The water in this area of Germany is very "hard" as we say in English, which means it is full of a lot of minerals. Conversely, "soft" water means it has very few minerals. Hard water can be a problem for the plumbing, as it tends to form white chrystals on everything, and can damage things like a coffee machines, clothes iron, and can clog up shower heads. The water softening system helps remove most of those minerals, but it's not perfect. I would say it probably reduces the meineral content by about 80%, but 20% remains. I still get white spots of mineral buildup on the glass in the shower for example if I don't use a squidgy to get the water off after every shower. The water itself is very clean and sanitary, as in all of Germany to my experience. There is no problem with drinking it even without a water softener, and it will never make you sick, but it does taste better when softened. Hope that answers your question, and if not please let me know.

@@TheAlanFish thank you very much!! It solved my query.

die Kaltmiete beträgt mehr als 2500 Euro. Leider ist es in dieser Gegend recht teuer.

Sorry, but I'm not really comfortable putting my personal email out in public like that. Would be happy to help you here in the comments if I can.

It's really not that bad. You just have to get used to them. :) The main davantage is you can leave the window cracked open without fear of a break in, and when fully open you can get a lot of air moving. The only thing I really am not a fan of is the lack of screens to keep bugs out. We get a few mosquitos here.

Rent is quite a bit. Not completely comfortable talking about such matters in public, but suffice it to say that rents in this area are not cheap, and this place is on the higher end as you might imagine. It's over 2500 Euro per month.

@@TheAlanFish Thanks for your reply. It is expensive but you have a great sized, modern apartment. There are USA apartments that would be comparable to this price wise. Most apartments here are one or 2 bedrooms and fewer 3 bedrooms but they do exist.

Rent for 2 months is a go full 3 bedroom house here in kenya

@@jullieisaac4868 It would be nice if housing was less expensive here. A decent 3 bedroom home that doesn't need a ton of repairs and has off-street parking for two cars would cost a minimum of 700,000 Euros or so in this area. Most people live in apartments or condominiums.

According to Google, 153 Square meters is 1646.878 square feet. I'm no expert on that sort of thing, but I find it a little difficult to believe that it would be incorrect the exact same way 2 different times when I searched it. You might want to double check your math? Nothing to prove here. Just slightly confused by the accusation I guess. Edit: I later realized that your impression of it's size might have been influenced by the camera itself. The camera lens on the phone (Pixel 2 XL) used to record this video is sort of the polar opposite of a "fish eye" lense. It always seemed to feel a little too zoomed in for normal shots, and could make things feel closer than they actually are. The apartment is indeed 1650 square feet. The main living area and kitchen alone are nearly 750 square feet after measuring and doing the math.

There are definitely some things here that I prefer to American homes. In particular, bathrooms feel higher quality. It's more in the execution of material choices like tiling the whole room, etc than appliance quality or anything like that. I think you could get a good contractor to do the same thing in the States. The building is also made out of quite thick concrete as well, which is extremely rare to find in the USA.

@@TheAlanFish agreed completely with you.

@@TheAlanFish I love it in Germany. Dusseldorf is where I go and compared to the UK its just better. As places to live can't complain. Your place looks amazing - we'll done indeed my friend. All the best.

@@duncanboyd7835 I've been quite happy living here near Frankfurt, though I might choose a less costly area if I had the option. My only real complaint with this area at the moment other than the cost of rent is all of the construction closures. Seems like half the country is closed for construction at times. LOL!

@@TheAlanFish aye you have a point. Count your self luck though you must like the European angle. Great place to be. Hope your Deutsch is better than mine! Ha ha. Tus.

I take it you mean September 2022? If so that should give you plenty of time to research. The only really key differences between the American and German apartment marketplaces are in Kitchens, deposites, and utilities payments from my experience. Many German apartments do not include a kitchen, with the renter being expected to provide their own. I would make sure you set your search for only places with a kitchen to avoid this, but expect those apartments to be a bit more costly. When it comes to a deposit, expect to pay 4 months rent as your first payment, with three months worth as the deposit itself, plus the first month of rent. When it comes to utilities, an estimate of that is usually included in your monthly rent, then at the end of the year the actual costs are calculated out and your landlord either refunds you some money, or you have to pay some extra depending on how accurate the estimate was. Rental prices are usually listed as "kaltmiete", German for Cold Rent, which is the price without the estimated utilities costs. Expect the actual "warm" rent to be a bit over that. My estimated utilities costs add 350 Euro to my monthly rent, but my place is pretty big and I have been under so far so I got a refund. The system takes the surprises out of month to month expenses, but you could get yourself in trouble if you use a ton of heat and owe a big bill at the end of the year. When in doubt, estimate high. Best of luck with your research and move. :)

@@TheAlanFish Correct 2022, this is great advice Alan, I grew up between Ireland and the UK, but even those two countries seem to be more similar to the US when it comes to apartments. I had noticed when browsing various websites that Kitchens aren’t a given, I’ll definitely have to pay close attention! Fortunately I’m transferring through work and I’ll be working remotely so I’m not limited in terms of location, ideally I’d be looking at a municipality on the outskirts of a bigger city, I’ll of course be bringing savings over so the 4 months deposit shouldn’t be an issue. Thank you very much for the advice, this is incredibly helpful! Do you expect to remain in Germany for the forceable future?

@@Snacksaloon I'll be here for at least another 2 years barring any unforeseen circumstances. With a little luck, maybe a bit longer. Having some locational flexibility should really help out with finding a nice place. I'm tied to a physical location for my job, and rent rates are really high here, but thankfully my employer provides a very generous housing allowance.

@@TheAlanFish could I ask what line of work you're in?

@@filetmignon9978 I work in a boring and arcane technical field that has to do with managing all of the frequencies used by systems that rely on wireless signals.

I'm pretty sure the ventilation in the garage door is actually there for Carbon Monoxide mitigation reasons. I hadn't really noticed it much or thought about it much before making the video, but after thinking about it more, I'm pretty sure that is why it is like this. Landlord said it's required by German law, but was not 100% sure why. There really isn't a ventilation system of any kind in the entire building that I am aware of. Heating is all under floor, and there is no AC. The unfortunate side effect of this open ventilation system in the garage is that it becomes an extremely wet and highly corrosive evnvironment in the winter. For nearly 4 months last winter, it was quite literally never a dry floor in the garage, and also very salty due to road salt being tracked in. It made the brake rotors on my car rust so badly the car often feldt like the parking break was locked on when I first tried to drive, but it was the pads rusted solid to the rotors. It's so corrosive that I am honestly considering purchasing a car protection system, basically a mini climate controlled garage.

No problem. Glad someone found it helpful. I honestly just posted it for family and friends so it's been a surprise to see it get a bunch of views all of a sudden.

Yeah, I know they don't exist here. Getting an answer as to why hasn't been easy though. 90% of Germans have no idea why they aren't a thing here. It definitely does help make your trash less stinky though, and we never had any issues with the sewers in the US from this.

It's located about 20 minutes west of Frankfurt, and it is a rental. Wish I could buy a place, but it is unfortunately a bit difficult as a foreign citizen.

@@TheAlanFish thank you. I lived in Berlin and in Olsterholz-Scharmbeck.

@@CreedTravelsTheWorld No problem, Sir.

I'm not really much of a "creator". This video was really only intended for my friends and family back in the US who might never get a chance to come visit. I would suggest looking up a channel called Kelly Does Her Thing here on KZfaq. She did a pretty good job of covering lots of key items for German living. She has since moved elsewhere, but the older videos are still good. Another good one is German Girl in America, who talks about a lot of thr differences she has noticed living in the US, if you happen to be coming from the states. Hope that helps.