Since 2015, if you hire a broker, you have to pay for it - usually the landlord. Previously, most tenants had to pay the costs. Clearly, the change did not hurt the real estate agents' business. Because brokers in Germany have continuously increased their turnover in recent years thanks to rising prices.
In 2017, sales reached the record level of just under 8.5 billion euros, as the Federal Statistical Office announced. Even after 2015, when the federal government introduced the so-called ordering principle and owners are no longer allowed to transfer the brokerage fees to the tenants, the turnover of brokers continued to increase.
The brokerage of residential real estate for third parties is generally calculated proportionally to the rental or purchase price. According to statistics, real estate brokerage sales reached around 4.4 billion euros in 2010. They climbed by several hundred million euros almost every year - except for 2013, when there was a slight decline compared to 2012.
Number of employees in the real estate industry has risen sharply
Property management and real estate trading also benefited from higher real estate prices. Property managers made nearly 6.5 billion euros in sales in 2010, more than 11 billion euros in 2017. Turnover with the purchase and sale of own real estate increased from around four billion euros in 2010 to 8.8 billion euros in 2017.
The number of employees in the service occupations in the real estate sector rose sharply in parallel. The number of brokers increased from around 44,600 in 2010 to more than 70,000 in 2017. In administration, the number of employees increased from around 67,400 to 112,400, in housing sales from just under 9,500 to more than 17,000.
According to statistics, the housing stock in Germany rose from 41.4 million to around 42.2 million from 2015 to 2018. The increase in property management companies from 2015 to 2017 to 24,600 was therefore disproportionately high - it was one third.
