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thiago_fm

Wrong.

In Germany the Maklerprovision (comission for the Real State agent) is 7%.

Typically, the seller pays half of it, but there are cases where the buyer pays it all.

You also need to pay a notary, government taxes, making the cost of buying a property over 12%+.

Furthermore, you shouldn't sell that property for around 10 years, otherwise, you'll need to pay Capital gains taxes.

The good part is that you don't pay any taxes if you own it for over 10 years and sell it.

Also property taxes are quite low, so once you get through this, it's usually great. Given that health insurance is public, there's quality public transport and the supermarket bill is cheap enough, it makes worth it!

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I don't normally nitpick in this way, but the single line "Wrong." rubbed me up the wrong way. The claim was:

> Almost No One Pays a 6% Real-Estate Commission–Except Americans (wsj.com)

and you've cited an example which fits neatly into the word "almost", _right there as the first worth in the sentence_

Except it is wrong. It’s not “except Americans”, it’s “except Germans” and "except Japanese" and hundreds of millions of others. It’s not about the exact number because the whole premise is that it’s too high.

"Almost No One is Poor in the United States–Except Lazy People"

"Almost nobody except X does Y." and "Z does Y, with Z != X" are consistent. Is your disagreement entirely due to the (possibly nil) distinction between "Almost nobody except X does Y" and "Almost nobody does Y -- Except X", which is how the article is worded? If so, at least one native English speaker will disagree.

The poster you're replying to seems to have more of an emphasis in how the "Wrong." parent was worded. There was no need to be that confrontational, when one is adding a point of information ("Z does Y, with Z != X") that is most likely consistent with the thread title, and with the article content.

Readers: Here are a dozen examples that refute you

Author: Ha! I used the mighty "ALMOST"! Don't you plebs know the rule of the mighty "ALMOST". I win. I am so smart.

When I see "almost" I would think of the exception being like, "Estonia", or "Albania", not.... Germany. It's a big place.

After how many counter examples do we go beyond "almost no one"?

It's like opinion articles saying "many people think blabla" where "many" is 3 tweets.

That sounds like some great tax policies in favor of long term home owners.

I was surprised that taxes ended up being over 50% of the total cost of home ownership, at least in New York (not NYC).

Bought my first house in 2021. My mortgage payment is less than my annual school + property taxes. It’s quite insane.

A big problem is my town’s property assessments arent done fairly. Anyone who hasn’t bought or sold their house in the last 10 years are enjoying extremely low assessments (e.g. a house down the street sold for $800k while the assessment was $270k). The tax assessor seems to wait until a specific house is sold before adjusting the assessed value.

Meaning grandma’s $2 million dollar house is still paying taxes based on the value of the house 30 years ago.

In California, if you make improvements to your home you are forced into a reassessment and higher taxes. Many homes in California are not maintained and updated for this very reason, since the taxes are set from when the home was purchased.

https://www.sccassessor.org/faq/understanding-proposition-13

You have mis-stated the situation. It is absolutely not true that "Many homes in California are not maintained and updated for this very reason [reassessment]".

Only the cost of the improvement, such as an addition to the building, is added to the existing assessed value. The entire property is not reassessed. And if the update is just a remodel (such as new flooring and tile in your bathroom, or new cabinets/countertops in your kitchen), there is no reassessement.

Example: a house was purchased 30 years ago for $200K, so that is the base year value (goes up 2% per year per Prop 13). If you build an additional bedroom onto the house for $50K, then only $50K is added to your assessed value.

And maintenance itself is never a cause for reassessment. New roof? No reassessment. New windows? No reassessment.

Just the property taxes were about 30% of the rent I paid at the place I rented before buying our house. Property taxes are paying for local services; renters are paying them as well, but the landlord handles the money in between.

That's why Germany has some of the highest homeownership rates in the world!

Oh wait...

Turns out encouraging illiquidity, high entry costs, and limiting people's options when it comes to selling without paying extortionate amounts of taxes doesn't actually do that.

That is cultural; Germans are risk-averse, and buying a property is a huge risk.

Americans are the ones that take home buying as low risk when divorce rates are really high and there's a huge "forced seller" probability on every new home bought.

In Spain, not only are that vast majority of properties sold through agents (anywhere from 3 to 10% commission, and there's a transfer tax of 10% on top of it all) but even apartment rentals are almost all done through agents and renters used to pay directly that fee, but the law changed and it has to be absorbed by the owner.

In Brazil it is 6%, some agents used to charge even 8% or 10% but the trend is towards 5% (since real estate became expensive here as well in the last 12 years).

Brazil is pretty cheap in that regard, what is expensive there are property taxes.

A friend of mine used to live in Brazil and he payed close to half a percent.

I was about to say the same. I'm currently buying a place in Germany and the fees are 3.57% per broker. So if you just use the seller's agent then it's 3.57, but if you have your own then it's about 7% total.

Japan is also ~6% typically, with the buyer paying 3% and the seller paying 3%.

Don't be misleading: capital gains tax is on capital gains, not on capital. The sale fees are effectively on capital when it changes hands.

Also, you do not pay them when investing the capital again (within EU I think) within 5 years.

100 000 times this. Same in neighboring Belgium and AFAICT same in France. 6% fees and up to 12.5% as a gift to the notary and the state in Belgium although to hide the rip off the seller shall be owned by the real estate fees and the buyer by the state fees. But one buy/sell and it s 18% lost. In France it s 44% tax on added value if you sell but then each year passing by this goes down by 2%. Something like that.

People are insane if they think thevhighly socialist EU doesn't screw people gigantic times on real estate.

Around 8% total fees in France as well. Property taxes are next to nothing as well compared to the US.

Buying a house in Italy. All fees are much higher than America. Realtor is still 6% - but with the notary, purchase tax, etc I think I will be 10-15%

the 7% is by law regulated to be 50/50 for the buyer and seller so what you say is wrong from the perspective of either.

Wrong.

Almost no one != no one

I can list at least ten countries that charge the same or more than the US. I believe the article headline is exaggerated.

That's why I started my post with "Wrong" because it is a response of a similar caliber.

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