Where to buy a home in Berlin: thriving tech and media sectors are tempting Londoners to buy in the city centre
Berlin is a city on the move. It’s the capital of Europe’s largest economy with blossoming tech and media sectors attracting the brightest international staff, yet its overwhelmingly liberal, youthful population makes it vibrant and culturally dynamic.
Twenty-seven years after the fall of its infamous wall, Berlin is an exciting place to live. It offers the dual pleasures of an attractive business environment and an affordable cost of living.
No surprise, then, that about 60,000 new arrivals move in every year with up to three-quarters of them aged under 30.
This expanding population has helped property prices rise by an annual 12 per cent since 2011 but because of their exceptionally low starting point they still lag well behind Paris and London and are 35 per cent lower than in Munich.
Pick of the districts
“Berlin’s 12 areas are each like a different city,” says Sven Henkes, managing director of Knight Frank associates Ziegert. “Architecture, shops and atmosphere change dramatically between them but a good public transport system of trams, metro and S-Bahn [rapid transit railway system] with innovative car-share schemes make getting around easy.”
Recent changes in Berlin are shown by the newly hip areas. Top billing still goes to stately Charlottenburg and on-trend Mitte but Kreuzberg is catching up fast while Neukölln, 10 years ago considered a no-go district for international investors, saw a 91 per cent increase in prices between 2012 and last year.
New-Build Homes
Cranes are whirring throughout the city with significant new residential development in both Mediaspree, the telecoms and media hub, and in the 100 acres of the Europacity quarter near Berlin Central Station.
Close to Potsdamer Platz and overlooking a large, family-friendly park, Wohnpanorama is a 100-unit development set to complete by 2020.
Good train links connect all of Berlin within 15 minutes and the business district is nearby. One- to three-bedroom homes start from £200,000 for 441sq ft to 2,013sq ft through Knight Frank, most with parking and park views. Monthly service charges including heating start from £107.
Also in lively and attractive Kreuzberg, Liegnitzer Strasse is a restored 1900s five-storey building with 23 apartments from £140,000 to £261,000, for studios and one-bedroom homes, through Knight Frank.
Sven Henkes says these flats, with high ceilings, period features but no lift, would rent well and the first five released for sale were reserved within two days.
International developers have also seen the potential in Berlin. Irish company Cannon & Cannon is starting construction on an interesting site on the River Spree in the prime district of Charlottenburg. No 1 Charlottenburg will have 272 apartments in 15 handsome buildings grouped around a central green garden.
The studio to three-bedroom homes of 420sq ft to 1,625sq ft start off-plan from £256,000, with parking from £43,000 and monthly service charges from £120.
“The location appealed because it links Berlin’s two most prestigious areas — Mitte and Charlottenburg — and is quiet but central,” explains Denise Cannon of Cannon & Cannon. “The apartments are on a bend in the river, three minutes’ walk from Tiergarten [the city’s “green lung” public park] and close to the shops on Ku’ Damm [the Kurfürstendamm designer shopping boulevard].”
The project is also beside the KPM Quarter, the porcelain- maker once owned by the Prussian king, now home to cafés and a museum in beautiful industrial buildings.
Larger, more family-focused apartments at Am Schlosspark — studios to four-bedroom homes, also being sold off-plan — start from £268,000 and range from 667sq ft to 1,895sq ft.
This newly launched project will eventually have 578 units in 14 buildings with attractive brick and plaster finishes and full-height windows. This is a less-established area of Charlottenburg, two minutes’ walk from handsome Versailles-style Schlosspark.