Who should manage your rented flat in Germany: a local Mietverwaltung, an SEV manager, a national firm, a platform or your investment firm?

The short answer: five options, one misunderstanding

An expat who owns a rented apartment in Germany has to get five things done every year whether or not anyone is paid to do them: find and screen a tenant when one leaves, hold the deposit correctly, collect the rent and chase arrears, coordinate repairs, and produce the annual operating cost statement. The market that does this for owners has organised itself into five options, and the first thing to clear up is which one you are already paying for.

• The WEG manager you already have. Every condominium building has a Hausverwaltung for the common property, paid through your Hausgeld. It manages the staircase, the roof and the heating bill of the building. It does not find your tenant, sign your lease or chase your rent unless you buy that as a separate service.
• Local Mietverwaltung and SEV firms. Regional managers such as Verto in Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Property Management, Maile in Stuttgart and Munich or GWB on the Lower Rhine manage rented units for individual owners, some with published prices.
• National and digital managers. homewise, Theo and CAPERA offer management across many cities, from single units to institutional portfolios.
• Platforms and matching services. Financemate connects international owners with managers; Urban Ground is a long-term rental platform that places international tenants.
• The management arm of your investment firm. LDP Group's clients are managed by FairMieten, LDP's own company, or by vetted partners such as Miethelden Muenchen, at a flat fee per tenant.

The rest of this page describes each option, names the firms we looked at on 19 September 2026 and quotes only what their own websites say. No ranking is implied. The section on LDP Group is written by LDP Group, and the limitations section says so again.

Hausverwaltung, Mietverwaltung, SEV: three words, three contracts

German usage puts three different services under one roof-shaped word. WEG-Verwaltung, usually called Hausverwaltung, manages the community of owners under the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz: common property, the annual Hausgeld budget, the owners' meeting. Since the 2020 reform an owners' association may demand a certified manager under § 26a WEG, which is why Theo advertises its Section 26a certification. Mietverwaltung manages a whole rented building for its owner. Sondereigentumsverwaltung (SEV, unit management) manages one rented condominium inside a WEG building for the owner of that unit: tenant, lease, rent, repairs in the private areas, and representation at the owners' meeting. GWB's own explainer draws exactly this line between the community's property and the individual landlord's tenancy.

For an expat with one or two flats the relevant contract is almost always SEV or a per-unit Mietverwaltung. The legal duties it takes over are fixed by the tenancy law, not by the contract: the deposit of at most three months' cold rent must be held separately from the landlord's assets (§ 551 BGB), the operating cost statement must reach the tenant within twelve months of the end of the billing period or the landlord loses the right to claim a balance (§ 556 Abs. 3 BGB), and a tenant in arrears of two consecutive months may be given notice without notice period (§ 543 Abs. 2 Nr. 3 BGB), a step that has to be executed correctly to hold up in court. Any manager you pay is doing these things on your behalf and in your name.

The decision table: what each option states about itself

What management costs in 2026: the benchmark and the two published prices

Most managers do not publish a price, so the best public anchor is the Verwalterentgeltstudie 2026, a study by the Center for Real Estate Studies (CRES) commissioned by the property manager associations BVI and IVD and reported by Haufe on 22 April 2026. For new contracts it finds average base rates per unit per month, gross, of 29.75 to 41.65 euros for Mietverwaltung, just under 42 euros for SEV and 29.75 to 47.60 euros for WEG management depending on the size of the building, with a median minimum turnover of 357 euros gross per property. Large buildings pay far less per unit: WEG rates above 99 units sit about 38 percent below those of buildings with up to ten.

Two things follow. First, the percent model and the flat model diverge as rent rises: on a Munich rent the same service costs three to five times more under a 10 percent contract than at the benchmark flat rate, while on a 600 euro rent in Duisburg the two are close. Second, a flat fee per tenant rather than per unit rises with room-by-room letting, which is the honest way to price a co-living flat where four leases mean four times the work. Ask every manager which basis applies, whether a placement fee of one or more months' rent exists when a tenant changes, and whether repairs are passed through at cost or with a mark-up. The fee is usually deductible against rental income, as Theo notes on its blog.

Local Mietverwaltung and SEV firms: the closest to the flat

• Verto describes its unit management as comprehensive SEV for rented condominiums in Rhine-Main, from Frankfurt and Wiesbaden to Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg: tenant search and screening, lease management, rent collection, annual utility billing based on the WEG statements, repair coordination, key management, WEG representation, move-in and move-out inspections and full on-site representation with power of attorney. It states full English-language support for emails, reports and calls, video calls across time zones for overseas owners, more than 1,500 units managed, a response time under 24 hours and a price from 25 euros per unit per month.
• Frankfurt Property Management describes itself as a boutique full-service manager built for remote ownership, in German, English, Spanish and French, for international investors and expats with owners in more than 20 countries, covering all Frankfurt districts, Offenbach, Hanau, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden and Bad Homburg. It publishes its Mietverwaltung price, 10 percent of net cold rent with a minimum of 100 euros net per month plus a one-time onboarding fee of 1,000 euros, and a 24 hour response time.
• Maile Hausverwaltung describes itself as a Mietverwaltung for rented residential and commercial buildings founded in 1925, in Stuttgart, Munich, Dresden and other German cities, covering tenant support, rent collection, accounting, operating cost statements, rent adjustments, maintenance and renovations with in-house construction management. Fees, English service and owners abroad are not stated.
• GWB Services describes itself as a property management and brokerage firm with offices in Moers and Duesseldorf offering Hausverwaltung, letting and sales and valuation, with a site in German, English and Dutch. Its explainer separates the WEG manager's common property from the landlord's tenancy. Fees and owners abroad are not stated.

National and digital managers: one contract, many cities

• homewise describes itself as property management for single units and small apartment houses throughout Germany, covering Mietverwaltung, SEV, WEG management, tenant placement and sales, with more than 1,000 certified contractors, a personal account manager, digital access to all documents, English speaking service and transparent fees. The fee itself is not stated.
• Theo describes itself as a Section 26a certified manager for WEG, Mietverwaltung and commercial property with more than 3,000 units in Berlin, more than 30 years in the city and offices in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart and Wildeshausen, offering a dedicated manager, a 24/7 emergency hotline, a digital tenant portal and documents checked by specialist solicitors. Fees are not stated.
• CAPERA Immobilien describes itself as a residential Mietverwaltung and WEG manager at ten locations from Hamburg to Munich, with commercial and technical management, active receivables management, fixed response times, in-house letting, reporting and ESG consulting. Its published references are portfolios of 167 to more than 241 units; it does not state a minimum. Fees are not stated.

Platforms and matching services: they find, they do not manage

• Financemate describes its property management page as a service that connects international owners, including US citizens, with property managers who handle tenants, maintenance and rent statements. It is a matching service, not a manager, and states no fee.
• Urban Ground describes itself as a long-term rental platform, 100 percent online, with virtual tours, digital contract signing, dual-language contracts, acceptance of non-German documents and tenants from 83 nationalities in Berlin and Frankfurt. Its landlord offer could not be read on the day; the tenant side is explicit, the owner side is not stated.
• immo Asset Solutions describes itself as a residential real estate advisory in Berlin serving diplomatic missions and embassy staff with apartment sourcing, staff housing and landlord negotiations. Its management article is a general explainer that quotes a market range of 8 to 15 percent of rent; it does not publish a management service of its own.

These options solve the finding problem, either of a manager or of a tenant. The annual statement, the deposit account and the arrears letter still need a contract with someone who signs in your name.

The owner abroad: what to demand from any of the five

• Reporting in a language you read, not just a website in English. Verto and Frankfurt Property Management state the service language; several others state only the site language.
• A power of attorney that lets the manager sign leases, attend the owners' meeting and instruct tradespeople without a wet signature flown in. Verto names it explicitly.
• A response time in writing. Verto and Frankfurt Property Management publish 24 hours; CAPERA promises fixed times without a figure; the rest do not say.
• Digital documents: leases, protocols, statements and invoices in a portal you can hand to your tax adviser. homewise and Theo describe portals; ask what the owner sees, not only the tenant.
• The two hard cases named in the contract: what happens when a tenant stops paying, step by step and with deadlines, and who decides a repair above your limit while you sleep in another time zone.
• The fee basis and the exit: per unit or per tenant, per cent or flat, placement fee or none, and the notice period to leave.

How LDP Group handles management for its clients

LDP Group manages the property after the purchase in every city it operates in, through FairMieten, its own management company, in Berlin and Bremen, and through vetted partners such as Miethelden Muenchen elsewhere. The fee is flat, from 30 euros per tenant per month depending on the city, with no percentage of rent and no placement fee; it covers tenant placement and screening, leases under German law, deposit handling, rent collection and dunning, maintenance coordination with an emergency line, annual operating cost statements and room-by-room management of co-living flats. Third-party repairs are billed at cost after the owner's approval. The owner deals in English with one contact at LDP; tenants, authorities and tradespeople hear German.

What this option does not do: manage properties that were not bought through LDP unless agreed case by case, or represent the owner in a tenancy lawsuit, where LDP coordinates a lawyer. It also does not exist outside the eleven cities LDP sources in. If you already own a flat in Leipzig, one of the other four options is the right place to go; the checklist above applies to us as much as to them. Details on the rental management page, and the self-management question on the page written for it.

Limitations and what we do not know

• Every statement about a named provider comes from one or two pages of that firm's public website, fetched on 19 September 2026 and read as published. We did not contact any of them, did not test their service and did not read their terms. Fees, cities and scope change; check the site on the day you decide.
• Where a page does not state a fee, a service language, a minimum unit count or a policy for owners abroad, we wrote not stated. That means the page we read does not say it, not that the firm lacks it. No provider on this page states a minimum number of units.
• Two fetches were incomplete on the day: Savills' German property management page returned an access error and Urban Ground's landlord page did not render. Savills is therefore not in the table; its homepage positions it as commercial and institutional.
• The benchmark figures are averages from a study of manager contracts reported by Haufe; they are not quotes, and the study's regional split and year-on-year change are not in the article we read.
• The comparison on a 1,500 euro Munich rent is our calculation on the providers' published figures, not a quote from any of them.
• LDP Group wrote this page. The section on LDP uses LDP's own service facts as of September 2026, which no outside party has audited. No ranking is implied.

What would change this answer

• A change to any named provider's website that adds or removes a fee statement, a city, a language or a service line, which we check when the page is reviewed.
• A new edition of the Verwalterentgeltstudie, which would replace the 2026 benchmark figures.
• A change to § 556 Abs. 3 BGB, § 551 BGB, § 543 BGB or § 26a WEG that alters what a manager must do or who may do it.
• FairMieten opening in a further city, which moves that city from partner to own management.

Last reviewed September 19, 2026. Reviewed by Nicholas Runtic and Abdelrahman Maged, co-founders of LDP Group, before publication and at every review date. We review this page every quarter and re-fetch each named provider's page before the review; if you are reading it more than three months after the date above, treat the provider descriptions and the benchmark as dated.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Haufe, Verwalterentgeltstudie 2026 (CRES for BVI and IVD), 22 April 2026 (fetched 19 September 2026)
• Verto, unit management (SEV) Rhine-Main (fetched 19 September 2026)
• Frankfurt Property Management, homepage with fees (fetched 19 September 2026)
• Maile Hausverwaltung, property management (fetched 19 September 2026)
• GWB Services, Hausverwaltung oder Mietverwaltung (fetched 19 September 2026)
• homewise, property management (fetched 19 September 2026)
• Theo, property management Berlin (fetched 19 September 2026)
• CAPERA Immobilien, residential property management (fetched 19 September 2026)
• Financemate, property management for internationals (fetched 19 September 2026)
• Urban Ground, homepage (fetched 19 September 2026)
• immo Asset Solutions, property management services in Germany (fetched 19 September 2026)
• § 551 BGB, Begrenzung und Anlage von Mietsicherheiten
• § 556 BGB, Abs. 3 annual operating cost statement
• § 543 BGB, termination without notice for arrears
• § 26a WEG, certified property manager
• LDP Group, rental management fee and scope
• FairMieten, LDP's management company