ᐅ Finding a Plot of Land – Real Estate Agent or Listing an Advertisement?

From the very beginning, we were determined to build only if we could find a plot of land in our own village.

Internet – 3 plots for sale – on the main road, far from all our friends and only through developers – no way.
Asked the local council – nothing – no more plots available.
Asked around – nothing – no one was selling.
Asked the mayor – success – someone living abroad was willing to sell their 2 plots. One of them is now ours.

Immowelt, Immoscout, Immonet, and Immopool are some of the major platforms you should regularly check. It’s also a good idea to contact banks, as they sometimes learn first if someone wants or needs to sell. You can also simply drive around residential areas and look for vacant lots. If you find one, ask the neighbors who owns it and see if the owner might be interested in selling.

We didn’t actually intend to build ourselves. We spent two years searching in vain for a used property. Then we attended a local building fair. However, there was nothing available there either. At the coffee stand, I started chatting with a man who turned out to be an employee of the building department. He told me that the response to the fair had been quite lukewarm. But that was probably because there are currently very few good plots of land still available for development. However, a decision had just been made to open up a planned residential area soon. This information had not yet become widely known and was missed in the newspaper the previous week.

I wasn’t really interested initially, but the man seemed a bit bored and insisted on showing us the map with the plots. When we looked at the map, my wife and I immediately noticed a plot that we really liked. “If we could get that plot, I could even imagine building,” was my comment, and my wife nodded. He looked closer and said that it probably wasn’t a municipal plot but belonged to a private individual who had acquired it through a compensation procedure. He mentioned that the owners lived further away and might even want to sell. He found the number in his files and gave it to us.

That same evening, my wife called the number. By the weekend, we had agreed on the price and bought the plot. Only then did we start seriously considering building a house. Sometimes you just need a bit of luck…

Local model – otherwise, nothing works here at all.
Vacant lots and the like have already been requested many times by numerous people. If you're looking for something in the Munich metropolitan area, you’ll need a lot of luck and good friends who give you the tip first,...

We found our dream plot in September 2013.

Before that, we had been searching for 2 years. We really wanted a plot with a meadow view, no neighbors, but not in the middle of nowhere.

We checked various online portals almost daily, contacted almost all local real estate agents, banks, and construction companies. We talked to all the farmers in our desired area, asking whether they had any land themselves or maybe knew someone who had land for building. We placed ads in newspapers and put up notices. We regularly rode our bikes around the area to look for free plots. Then we often rang neighbors’ doorbells to ask who owned the neighboring land.

So, basically, the full range of efforts.

In the end, we found what we were looking for in the regional newspaper. There was a relatively hidden private ad. After a quick check, we immediately made an offer.

The more specific your wishes or personal requirements for the plot are, the more time you should invest in the search. Following the motto: "Fortune favors the diligent."
But don’t get impatient either. You don’t want to end up buying a plot out of desperation that turns out to be a poor compromise, just because you want to start building finally.