Caution! Please report if something similar has happened to you: After a successful inspection, the alleged broker, Ms. Schumacher, sent us contracts. These were unsigned and explicitly stated that the deposit was to be paid in cash and rent was to be paid to the specified rental account. So far so good. However, the cover letter said that we should immediately transfer the total amount to the broker's external account. Otherwise a meeting cannot take place. We politely expressed concerns and said that we didn't feel comfortable paying that amount in advance without having a valid contract or any security. The principle is: never pay in advance without a contract, especially since we didn't really know the property management company or the real estate agent or could find any further information online. Concerns were heightened when we discovered that sending blank contracts combined with pushy payment requests is a common scam. Still, we remained polite, not sure who we were dealing with at this point. We asked realtor friends and even the police to make sure we didn't make a mistake. EVERYONE strongly advised us never to transfer money to an external account without a valid contract. The answer (two hours before the agreed key handover/rental start) from the alleged agent was different: She didn't respond at all, accused us of not keeping agreements and kept pushing for the money. We never agreed to the “agreement” to pay money in advance without a contract. The handover had to be canceled, she said, and there was no alternative date. I politely offered to bring the money in cash with me when she picked up the keys, but she didn't respond. After all, we had already arranged the move for that day and canceled our old rental agreements. None of our seven calls were responded to. To this day I still don't know whether it was really a scam. Luckily we didn't transfer any money. At least someone could actually be reached at the Fischer heirs' telephone number (to our surprise). I initially explained the matter in a friendly manner and hoped to find out more here. Without going into it, I was immediately accused of being impudent. The housing market is a matter of trust and I don't like it anyway. I would have forfeited my chances of getting apartments in Cologne.

Potential is there. Unfortunately the entire area is completely dirty. There is trash everywhere. A lot of things are broken and in bad condition. Obviously, the only attempt here is to achieve maximum profit without investing a single penny.

Due to the many companies based here, parking problems.