Whether house or apartment for rent: The first viewing appointment puts many under pressure. The first shared flat, the first apartment and maybe even your own house at some point. On real estate portals we quickly and easily find thousands of apartments in Berlin Mitte, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne or Düsseldorf. With apps or on the notebook – but then it comes, the viewing appointment! 40, 50 applicants in 15 minutes for a single apartment are not uncommon. How can you convince the landlord of you?! We met with the brokers and experts from IhrHausverkauf.de and got 7 ultimate tips for your viewing appointment. This way you increase the chances of your dream home! If you want to read through everything in detail, then you will find the article: 7 Tips for visiting apartments here.

Tips for your apartment viewing

How do I convince at the inspection appointment for my new apartment? Many who move to a larger city for the first time are directly confronted with the reality of an apartment visit. There are not many flats, and therefore there are up to 100 applicants on site, even at inspection appointments! Many magazines and newspapers, of course also TV have reported about it, in Germany there is a housing shortage! That’s why we met with experts today to find out how you can shine on your next apartment tour! How do you mean? Ultimately, the point is that the landlord gets a positive and personal impression of you. With a few little lifehacks, you can quickly gain an advantage. Here are the 7 ultimate tips for your apartment viewing!

New now! The FIV App for your apartment inspection: Learn online and prepare yourself perfectly with over 100 questions. Read more here: Tenants & Landlords Questions

Write an e-mail instead of just “visit request”

What is the biggest mistake most people make at the beginning of their housing search? You write randomly to many landlords and do not write personal texts but simply use the standard form. This is what most real estate portals offer, where you just enter your name and e-mail address and most of the time you have a ready-made text that looks something like this:

• I ask for a viewing appointment

Of course, landlords of apartments and houses receive such standardized requests daily, not only daily but probably several times an hour. Because if at the end up to 100 applicants on a housing inspection are, there must have arrived already in the apron extremely many applications. But who does the real estate agent or the landlord remember? Tip number one, use a few personal words instead of just the standard text in the real estate portal!

As a rule, you will find the contact person or the name of your contact person in the real estate advertisement. Of course you should use this in your first cover letter. Ideally, you should also state the object number in your cover letter so that you are not registered for another apartment under any circumstances. The most important tip, however, is to formulate your honest interest in the apartment. Because the landlord, you must always remember, usually has only two or three objects. These are quasi his retirement provision, a capital investment for the late years. Of course every landlord wants quiet and solvent tenants, so that you don’t have to worry about annoying matters. Therefore, you should write a few sentences about yourself in your first cover letter, for example about your job and of course a few words about why you are interested in the apartment! Please ask for a viewing appointment afterwards and then finish with a few friendly words.

In a nutshell:

• Use the direct salutation, if the name of the landlord or offerer is in the advertisement, this works directly much more personal
• Always name the apartment or object number
• formulate your honest interest in the apartment or flat share and use not only the automatically generated text of the real estate portals
• Definitely write a few sentences about yourself (see tip 2 for details)
• Please ask for a viewing date, if you have little time or are just in exam stress, directly name possible time windows for a viewing date
• Don’t forget the farewell greeting, like “kind regards”

2. Tell something about yourself, who are you?

Okay, your cover letter is just a little more personal. But what exactly should you talk about in your first cover letter? You shouldn’t reveal too much of yourself! In the end, it’s enough to write two or three friendly sentences. Mention your profession best! After all, landlords and real estate agents want solvent tenants who pay their rent on time. The most important is therefore a regular income.

As you should call your professional situation, you should definitely omit a few things in your first cover letter. For example, if you smoke, you shouldn’t mention that. If you have a small pet, for example a guinea pig or a budgie, then you should not mention this directly in the first cover letter! Do you prefer to stay in your professional situation or maybe you can also shine with an honorary dance?

You must be serious

A last but rarely noticed aspect is the seriousness in the cover letter. That is, from which e-mail address do you send your request? If a landlord sees a dubious email address, your chances are already lower in relation to a respectable email address. That’s why you should make sure that your e-mail address looks good too! An untrustworthy email address they for example so from:

• lavidaloca93@gmail.com

Instead, choose a reputable email address, without frills. For example, a legitimate email address looks like this:

• max.mustermann@gmail.com

If your desired name is no longer available, just add .flat, like here:

• max.mustermann.wohnung@gmail.com

Sad but true, with certain surnames one has worse chances with landlords, which was proven by some studies. In particular surnames from the Arabic area have clearly less chances to get an appointment for an apartment inspection. The experts from ihrhausverkauf.de have two tips here. One is if you have a partner whose name sounds more local, perhaps use his or her name in the cover letter. This increases the chances, because the name sounds more familiar. Tip number two is, should you have a second first name, use it and shortlist it off by a period. Studies have also shown that such an abbreviated first name has a similar effect to an academic title.

Always follow courtesy rules

Extremely many people are volunteers and help society. Although one does this of course out of conviction, one can perhaps indicate with it once with the housing search. Of course, landlords also think it is very good to stand up for society and the general public. Because, of course, an apartment building that belongs to the landlord is also a kind of community. So if you can push your limits through professional commitment and social commitment, then you can only score points!

Tip! Clothing makes people

Fashion makes so much difference! Anyone who dresses stylishly and has a certain feeling for modern times scores quickly. The first impression, which is hardly a second, counts. Do you look serious and sorted or do you look rather casual and therefore also careless? Clothing in particular is very important. For example, many male landlords pay particular attention to the applicants’ shoes. Therefore you should think about your outfit when you go to your viewing appointment.

Tip! Bag full of documents > businessman

Who is busy a lot, he has usually also many documents which he must work on. If you have a bag with you anyway, for example to bring your documents, which we will talk about later, then you might want to put some additional folders in your bag. The fuller your bag, the more papers you have, the busier you look. Since solvency is a big factor, which means that you can afford the rent, this is a good indicator for many landlords. You take responsibility, you organize and you have a lot to do.

Ask the right questions

What are you talking about at your first viewing? The right choice of questions is of course also very important when you are talking to your potential new landlord. Of course, we could go into a great deal of detail here, but the basic idea is that you try to save the landlord as much inconvenience as possible. Rather than asking questions about what’s wrong here or when the next renovation is due, you should ask questions about what the neighborhood is like. What nice restaurants are there nearby? How are the buses set up nearby? All these questions do not mean much effort for the landlord at first, therefore it is not worth it for you in the first small talk to deal with things that cost the landlord time or money, but rather tend to social issues.

Don’t always tell everything before you

So far we have talked a lot about what you should say about yourself, but you shouldn’t tell everything about yourself! Because you don’t always have to be honest at a viewing appointment, for example if you like smoking, you don’t necessarily have to mention that you smoke a lot. If you like listening to loud music, you shouldn’t necessarily mention that you like listening to loud heavy metal music. So always think about what information you give and what you don’t.

Prepare a folder with a small cover letter

You did it all! You have formulated a good cover letter with which you got your viewing appointment. You talked to the landlord or real estate agent and showed yourself at your best. You were talking about your job, your hobbies and maybe even your volunteering. Now you have another possibility to distinguish yourself from all the other applicants, prepare your own folder! Just as you wrote a personal cover letter in your first e-mail, you should also hand in a personal folder at the end of your visit. Most will again only take the standardized pressure of the landlord and quickly enter your information. If you have already made a professional folder of yourself in advance of the inspection appointment, in which the landlord finds all relevant information and forms, you stand out from the crowd once again!

• ID card
• self-disclosure
• Contract of employment / Proof of income
• Schufa information
• certificate from previous lessor
• rental surety (if available)

Voilà! It can be that easy to stay in the landlord’s head and gain a small advantage over the others.

In the end it’s all about mental strength and maybe just about the attitude “This is the apartment I’m getting”. Therefore a few tips for mental strength at your first or your next apartment visit!

Extra: Evidence of character!

Here once again the most important thing for your own mental attitude during the apartment inspection and the preparation for the inspection. Tips at a glance:

1. leave a good first impression
2. Tread naturally and confidently on
3. Bring your complete documentation with
4. Ask the right questions and give the right answers
5. Show that you are determined to get the property
6. Insert yourself into the landlord