11 Best Renting Websites To Find A Home In Germany

In this guide, I will summarize the best renting websites in Germany for finding an apartment based on the following criteria:

• long-term apartments
• furnished short-term apartments
• shared apartments

Best websites for long-term apartments in Germany

Regular rental contracts in Germany are unlimited in time. There are Germans who live in the same rental apartment their entire life. So, when I talk about long-term apartments, you can understand the word literally. You also don’t have to move every year because the rental price increases drastically. Germany is a tenant paradise once you get a long-term apartment. 

Finding a long-term apartment is one of the biggest hurdles. The following platforms are the best websites to find a long-term rental apartment in Germany. All of them are exclusively in the German language. 

• ImmobilienScout24: This is by far the market leader for rental properties in Germany. On average, it features 500.000 listings and has around 12 million active users per month. You can find listings from private landlords as well as real estate agents on ImmoScout. Because ImmoScout is so powerful in the German market, some real estate agents only list their properties there. 
  
  ImmoScout24 offers a premium account called MieterPlus. It allows more and faster access to new listings and a complete tenant profile. When Jen and I looked for our new apartment last year, we only used ImmoScout as a platform and signed up for the premium account. We found our new apartment within one month of intense searching. 
  
  To help you navigate ImmobilienScout24 in English, I recorded five over-the-shoulder videos. In the videos, I show you how to set up your premium profile so that it looks professional and how to navigate and understand listings. The videos are part of our premium eBook ‘Get Your Keys’.
  
• Immowelt: It is the second biggest online marketplace for real estate in Germany. You can also find all kinds of homes for rent and sale, from private to business and apartments to houses. During my sign-up, I didn’t find the option to buy a premium profile from Immowelt. 
  
• Immonet: It belongs to the same company as Immowelt, and it is operated by the same team. You can mostly find the same or fewer listings than on Immowelt. Because of that, I don’t see a reason to sign up to this portal at all. 
  
• Immobilio: This is an aggregator platform that showcases listings from other smaller sites. If you really want to scrape the entire internet, this might be another platform to take a look at. 
  
• Kleinanzeigen: Formerly known as ebay Kleinanzeigen is pretty much the craigslist of Germany. We know people who have found their home via this platform, however, it is also full of scams. I would be very careful using it, especially from abroad.  

Best websites for short-term furnished rentals in Germany

Furnished short-term apartments often serve as a stepping stone to internationals on their move to Germany. There are four main providers that serve cities all over Germany:

• Homelike
• Housing Anywhere
• Wunderflats
• Uniplaces

These providers are all similar to Airbnb in Germany. However, they have one major advantage over Airbnb. They offer a filter and guarantee for city registration in Germany. This is the most crucial aspect within your first two weeks in Germany. I explain the why at the end of this guide.

I have written a detailed comparison guide on all four providers above, which you can read below.

Best websites for shared housing in Germany

Shared housing is popular in Germany, mainly amongst students, young professionals, and expats. But also in cities like Berlin, where the housing market is particularly tight, shared housing and studio apartments have become the norm for singles. You will be looking for a WG-Zimmer. WG is short for Wohngemeinschaft (shared apartment). The best websites to find rooms in shared apartments in Germany are:

• WG-gesucht (available in English!)
• ImmobilienScout24 specifically for WGs

Best websites to rent a house in Germany

The best websites to find a house for rent in Germany are the same ones I listed above for renting a long-term apartment. There are no separate websites for rental houses or apartments in Germany. Whether you will find more available houses or apartments for rent highly depends on the location you are searching for. 

You can usually find more houses to rent outside of cities in the suburbian areas. 

The most important criteria for your German apartment

Regardless of which website you use to find an apartment in Germany, you must ensure one thing. Your landlord must provide you with the Wohnungsgeberbestätigung. This is the most important paper for settling in Germany. By law, landlords are required to (unless it is a vacation home or similar, like most listings on Airbnb). 

You need this paper because without it you won’t be able to do your city registration (Anmeldung). By law you you have to register within your first two weeks when you move to Germany and intend on staying more than 90 days. 

The city registration triggers other important bureaucratic steps. You need it to be able to get your residence permit. To open a German bank account. To get an internet contract. To get your tax ID, etc.. Long story short, without it, you are putting a massive road block on your way to settle into life in Germany more smoothly.

How to apply for an apartment in Germany?

Applying for long-term apartments to rent in Germany can be tougher than applying for a job. Going into detail here is out of scope of this guide. But don’t worry; you can find all the necessary steps in detail in my guide below.

To gain full confidence on how to master the rental process in Germany, you can read our brand new eBook: ‘Get Your Keys! The Expat’s Handbook to Renting in Germany’.

You will learn everything you need to know to nail your long-term apartment on 105 concise pages. You can follow along with my over-the-shoulder videos on how to set up your profile on ImmobilienScout24. You can access templates to communicate with landlords and much more.