Commission-free Apartments to buy in Duisburg

From coal to computers: the miners' children work in call centers today

Like perhaps no other city in the Ruhr region, Duisburg suffered from the effects of the so-called "steel crisis" from around 1975 onwards. Until the late 1990s, high unemployment, massive migration and population decline caused great uncertainty at times in the city in the Lower Rhine and Ruhr regions with its current population of just under 487,000. However, thanks to the renaissance of steel - today the city is once again the most important center of the related industry in Central Europe - and the consistent reorientation toward future-oriented industries in the areas of trade, logistics, transport, food and beverages, as well as micro- and nanotechnology, the city has since successfully repositioned itself. The settlement of large call centers of well-known banks and companies such as Deutsche Bahn AG and Dresdner Bank as well as the concentrated promotion of the service sector, especially by the municipal Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH (DVV), have created new jobs and perspectives. Cross-border cooperation has also been intensified within the framework of the German-Dutch special-purpose association Euregio Rhine-Waal with its total of 51 municipalities, municipal associations and chambers of commerce. It takes less than an hour to drive from Duisburg to the Dutch cities of Arnhem, Eindhoven and Nijmegen. Urban redevelopment and renewal, such as in the Rheinpark, with the planned "Duisburger Freiheit" urban quarter at the freight station and the new central shopping centers "Forum Duisburg," "CityPalais" and "Königsgalerie Duisburg," also make the city a good long-term choice for residential property.

Regionally unrivaled low purchase prices and green oases just around the corner

Thus Duisburg presents itself straight regarding the cities and municipalities in its direct spatial neighbourhood as unbeatable favorable area for the purchase of free-hold apartments of all sizes, lies nevertheless the average real estate purchase price of somewhat more than 1.000 euros/m² is well below those in Düsseldorf (approx. 4,000 euros/m²), Meerbusch (approx. 3,100), Mühlheim an der Ruhr (approx. 3,000), Ratingen (approx. 2,500), Moers (2,200), Rheinberg (approx. 1,900), Dinslaken (approx. 1,700), Krefeld (approx. 1,500) and Oberhausen (approx. 1,200). Even far below the current Duisburg average, there are still apartments for sale in some districts and locations, for example in Bruckhausen, Aldenrade, Marxloh, Obermarxloh, Hochheide, Ruhrort, Ruhrort, Fahrn, Hochemmerich, Untermeiderich, Mittelmeiderich, Obermeiderich, Alt-Homberg, Beeck, Friemersheim, Hochfeld, Laar, Neumühl and Wanheimerort for prices between approx. 200 and 900 euros/m². The price range in neighborhoods such as Bissingheim, Duissern, Großenbaum, Vierlinden, Wedau, Huckingen, Rumeln-Kaldenhausen, Wanheim-Angerhausen, Mündelheim, Rheinhausen-Mitte, Buchholz and Baerl extends from just over 1,000 to around 2,500 euros/m². Especially in the latter, as in general in the urban areas located at the city limits, Duisburg shines as an amazingly green city with numerous open spaces for leisure, sports and recreation. For example, the 200-hectare Duisburg Sports Park in Neudorf, the Botanical Garden and the Kaiserberg in Duissern, the Baerler Busch recreation area including the Lohheider See lake, and the 45-hectare Mattlerbusch recreation park in Hamborn including the Niederrhein-Therme spa, many bike paths and the "Trimm-dich" trail.

The city cares for its residents and supports unusual ideas

A helpful contact for people interested in buying apartments in Duisburg is, for example, the Duisburg Advisory Network for Private Property Owners (DBI), which is organized jointly by the Duisburg Home and Property Owners Associations and the City of Duisburg under the direction of the municipal Office for Social Affairs and Housing and provides extensive information on contacts, advisory services and support programs. In addition, Duisburg also offers a detailed and up-to-date housing counseling agency for senior citizens as well as elderly people and people in need of care from the age of 60, and interested parties and those willing to establish community housing and construction projects are also actively supported in their search for suitable municipal properties as well as with funding opportunities by the city administration and the contact point of the Offices for Social Affairs and Housing as well as Urban Development and Project Management. In view of the vacancy rate of apartments, which is still very pronounced in some locations, the city offers both practically and theoretically a lot of room for alternative ideas and unconventional construction and conversion ideas at very favorable conditions in a regional comparison. As in the whole of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, there has been no ban on the misappropriation of privately financed housing in Duisburg since the end of 2006, so the purchase of a condominium can be particularly interesting for service providers and tradespeople, as it can be easily converted into office or practice space, for example.

• Instead of in the seam in front of the keyboard: steel crisis and structural change in Duisburg are passé

• High-tech, trade and the service sector have created new jobs

• A good location for cross-border economic cooperation

• Depending on location, there are very large differences in real estate prices

• Instead of coal spoil heaps, there is an astonishing amount of green space in the urban area

• Local politics and administration support private real estate investors

• The high vacancy rate in some areas offers plenty of scope for new residential ideas