What to Expect When Moving to Munich — The Housing Edition

So you've decided to move to Munich. Congratulations — it's a beautiful, liveable, surprisingly green city with excellent public transport, good schools, and enough culture to keep you busy for years. But before you start browsing apartment listings, there are a few things worth knowing.

Apartment or House?

Let's start with the basics: in Munich, most people live in apartments. Detached houses exist, but they're rare in the city itself and extraordinarily expensive. If you're coming from a country where a house with a garden is a reasonable aspiration for a young family, adjust your expectations. A balcony is the Munich equivalent of a garden.

If having outdoor space is non-negotiable for you, look at the outer neighborhoods or the surrounding municipalities (Umland). You'll get more space for your money — but go in with realistic expectations about the commute. The S-Bahn will get you into the city in 20-40 minutes on paper, but door-to-door travel time is longer once you factor in getting to and from the station. And the S-Bahn is not always reliable: construction, maintenance works, strikes, and incidents can leave you with few alternatives if it's your only connection. Before committing to a location, check what other options are nearby — a bus line or U-Bahn station within reach makes a real difference on the days the S-Bahn lets you down.

The Three Types of Munich Apartments

Understanding Munich's building stock will save you a lot of confusion when you're viewing apartments.

Altbau — old buildings, typically pre-1950 — are what most people dream of when they imagine a Munich apartment. High ceilings, large windows, generous room proportions, beautiful staircases, and a sense of character that newer buildings simply can't replicate. The light in a good Altbau is genuinely special. The trade-off: windows were often last updated in the 1990s and can be drafty by modern standards, and the wooden beam floors have a gentle spring to them that you either love or find unsettling. Most Altbau buildings have been partially renovated, but don't assume everything is up to current energy standards.

Nachkriegsbauten — postwar buildings from the 1950s to 1970s — are the workhorse of Munich's housing stock. Solid, functional, and often well-located, but not particularly inspiring. Lower ceilings, smaller rooms, less natural light, and a general feeling of compression that can take some getting used to. They tend to be more affordable than Altbau, which is their main selling point.

Neubauten — new builds — are sleek, energy-efficient, functional. Floor-to-ceiling windows, large accessible bathrooms, good insulation. But they come with their own surprises. Ceilings are often no higher than in postwar buildings despite being marketed premium living. The floor plans are often uninspiring: a long entrance corridor to a the small, standard sized bedrooms, an open living area with a small kitchen strip along one wall — oddly modest for a country where people actually cook. Bathrooms frequently have no window. Everything works, but little personality. Utility costs (Nebenkosten) tend to be higher too — you're paying for elevators, underground parking, and landscaped courtyards.

Bring Everything. Seriously.

This is the part that surprises almost every expat arriving in Munich for the first time: German apartments come with almost nothing.

No kitchen — not even a sink, sometimes. You'll need to either buy the previous tenant's kitchen, build your own, or start from scratch. We've written a full guide on this, because it genuinely deserves one.

No built-in wardrobes. No closets. Nowhere to hang your clothes except the furniture you bring or buy.

No light fixtures. Just bare bulbs or — in many cases — a wire hanging from the ceiling.

No curtains, no blinds, no window coverings of any kind.

And no, this is not a sign that the apartment is unfinished. This is standard. Budget accordingly, and give yourself time to settle in properly — it can take months before a Munich apartment feels like home.

One exception worth noting: new buildings sometimes come with fitted bathrooms that are genuinely impressive. But the kitchen will still be missing.

Practical Quirks

A few things that will confuse you in the first weeks:

Parking is scarce and expensive. If you have a car, securing a parking spot is a separate negotiation — and not always possible in central neighborhoods. What you will find, almost everywhere, is a bicycle storage area in the courtyard or basement - it can range from being well-organized to more informal.

Recycling is not collected from your door. Glass, in particular, needs to be brought to a Wertstoffinsel — a recycling point on the street, usually a cluster of color-coded containers. There are rules about when you can use them (not on Sundays, not late at night — noise).

Storage comes in the form of a Keller — a basement storage unit that is very often included with the apartment. It's not glamorous, but it's genuinely useful, especially given the lack of built-in storage inside the apartment. Be aware that in older buildings in particular, basements can be damp — which puts your belongings at risk of getting mouldy. Check the condition before you start storing anything valuable down there.

The washing machine lives in the bathroom or kitchen in most Munich apartments — sometimes in a shared laundry room in the basement. A dedicated laundry room is a luxury, not a standard.

The Neighborhood

One of Munich's great strengths as a city is its neighborhood infrastructure. Most residential areas have a primary school within walking distance, multiple playgrounds (sad reality: there are rarely any toilets), and excellent public transport connections. Children here gain independence early: it's completely normal to see eight or nine year olds walking to the bakery, meeting friends at the playground, or taking the U-Bahn to school alone or in small groups. If you're coming from a culture where children are driven everywhere, this will feel either liberating or alarming — possibly both.

The Lastenfahrrad — the cargo bike — is the Munich family vehicle of choice. If you have children and plan to stay, you will eventually get one. Everyone does.

The Neighbors

Munich neighbors exist on a spectrum.

On one end: the older lady on the ground floor who will let you know, promptly and without warmth, that your child's footsteps are audible and that your recycling is not sorted correctly. This is not a stereotype — it's a lived experienc. In fact, a difficult neighbor can be a common reasons families start apartment hunting again shortly after moving in. If you can, chat with a few residents before signing anything. A quick conversation in the stairwell can tell you a lot about the atmosphere in a building — and potentially save you a lot of grief.

On the other end: the family with kids on the third floor who will, within weeks, become some of your closest friends in the city. Munich social life among families is refreshingly informal — you don't invite each other to dinner, you end up at a spontaneous picnic in the park, or the kids start moving freely between apartments before the adults have properly introduced themselves.

In good buildings, the community reveals itself slowly: a summer barbecue in the courtyard, a spontaneous Hofflohmarkt where neighbors sell things to each other, a WhatsApp group that starts for practical reasons and ends up being genuinely friendly. It takes time. But it's there.

The Honest Bit

Munich is not an easy city to arrive in. The housing market is tight, the bureaucracy is real, and the first few months can feel isolating. But it rewards patience. The infrastructure is excellent, the city is beautiful, the schools are good, and once you find your neighborhood and your people — and you will — it has a quality of life that's hard to match.

Just bring your own kitchen.