Buying property in Potsdam

The Potsdam market in 2025

In 2025, the valuation committee counted 1,249 property purchase contracts in Potsdam, 29% more than the year before. The market is thus back at its 2022 level. According to the committee's analysis, prices for used homes stayed largely stable. Most house sales were in the districts of Potsdam and Babelsberg and in the neighbourhoods of Groß Glienicke and Fahrland.

You can see what we currently offer in Potsdam directly below this paragraph. All properties with a map are on the page Properties in Potsdam.

Districts: where people buy what

Potsdam is bigger than many Berliners assume. Besides the core city, it includes the districts incorporated between 1935 and 1939: Babelsberg, Drewitz, Bornim, Bornstedt, Nedlitz and Sacrow, Eiche and Grube since 1993, and Golm, Uetz-Paaren, Marquardt, Satzkorn, Fahrland, Krampnitz, Kartzow, Neu Fahrland and Groß Glienicke since 2003. Locations and buildings differ accordingly.

The city centre with the Baroque Quarter and the Dutch Quarter is mostly period buildings (Altbau), and much of it is listed. In 2025, the district of Potsdam, i.e. the core city, accounted for 48% of all resales of flats, and Babelsberg for 23%. Together with Drewitz in the south, these three districts made up around 71% of all flat sales.

Babelsberg in the east combines period-building neighbourhoods, villas on Griebnitzsee and the media city. A social preservation ordinance applies to southern Babelsberg, and one is being prepared for northern Babelsberg (see below).

The Bornstedter Feld development area in the north has grown since 1993, with a lot of new build from the last three decades. In 2025, new flats were sold mainly there, as well as in Brandenburger Vorstadt in Potsdam-West, which borders Sanssouci Park, and in renovated buildings in the Krampnitz development area.

If you want a house with a garden, you often end up in the northern neighbourhoods, such as Groß Glienicke, Fahrland, Marquardt or Golm. Building land there is considerably cheaper than in the city (figures below). The route to Berlin depends more on car and bus, though Golm at least has a regional railway station.

Connections to Berlin

Two rail lines carry the commuter traffic. The S7 runs from Potsdam Hauptbahnhof via Babelsberg and Griebnitzsee to Wannsee and on through central Berlin along the Stadtbahn. You reach the centre faster by regional express, which runs via Wannsee to Berlin Hauptbahnhof and stops less often. Within Potsdam, trams and buses take over.

How well this works for you depends on how far your flat is from the nearest station and where in Berlin you work. The journey from Bornstedt, Golm or Groß Glienicke looks very different from the one from Babelsberg. Groß Glienicke, for example, is closer to Spandau than to central Potsdam. Try the route at rush hour before you buy. According to the valuation committee, it is around 35 kilometres to BER airport.

Prices: what the valuation committee reports

Reliable prices for Potsdam are published by the valuation committee for land values in the state capital Potsdam. Its 2025 property market report appeared in May 2026; the current version is dated 3 August 2026. It analyses the purchase contracts of 2025. Unlike asking prices on portals, these figures show what was actually paid.

Source: 2025 property market report, p. 7 and fig. 31 and fig. 118. Building land free of development charges, excluding plots with water access. Individual properties differ considerably depending on location and condition.

What does that mean for your budget? A plot of 640 square metres, as large as the average of the cases analysed in the inner urban area, costs around €416,000 at the mean value of €650, before a single stone is laid. In the outer urban area the plots were larger, 935 square metres on average, and cheaper: 935 square metres times €435 comes to €406,725. For almost the same money you get around half as much area again there.

Plots on the waterfront cost more than these averages. The valuation committee has taken them out of the table and evaluates building plots on the waterfront separately; if you are looking at one of Potsdam's lakes, you should read up there.

The standard land values (Bodenrichtwerte) for each zone are available free of charge in the BORIS Brandenburg portal, including for earlier years. Our guide Buying a house in the Berlin surrounding area shows how to use the standard land value to check a house price.

Transfer tax and additional costs

Potsdam is in Brandenburg, so the Brandenburg tax rate of 6.5% applies, half a percentage point more than in Berlin. Using the average home as an example:

Rounded example. Notary and land register fees are typical figures between 1.5 and 2.0%. The agent's commission of 3.57% is the buyer's share usual in Berlin; in Potsdam it may differ, and the brochure is binding.

Banks rarely finance around €90,000 of additional costs, so you cover them from equity. The tool further up gives a rough idea of whether the purchase price fits your income. It only becomes binding in a conversation with the bank; the guide Mortgage financing describes the route there.

New build or existing property

In Potsdam you usually buy a new build from the developer, often before the house is finished. You then pay in instalments according to construction progress, as the German Estate Agents and Developers Ordinance (Makler- und Bauträgerverordnung) requires. The guide Buying a new build explains how a developer contract is structured and what to look for at handover.

Existing properties vary widely, from renovated period flats with stucco to flats from the 1970s that clearly need renovation. For owner-occupied flats, ask for the minutes of the last owners' meetings and about the maintenance reserve; for houses, ask about the age of the heating and the energy performance certificate. What to check at a viewing is in the guide Buying a property: what to look out for?

For listed buildings, buyers who let them out can, under certain conditions, claim increased tax depreciation on renovation costs; the valuation committee also points this out. Whether this applies to you is something your tax adviser should clarify before the purchase, not after.

Heritage protection, World Heritage and by-laws

The palaces and parks of Potsdam and Berlin have been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1990. For buyers this matters mainly near the parks: the lower heritage protection authority also checks building projects in the surrounding area for whether they affect the World Heritage site. A loft conversion with a view of Sanssouci is therefore not purely a matter of planning law.

If a house is listed or lies in a protected heritage area, you need heritage permission for changes, even for a solar installation on the roof according to the city's guidance. If it lies within the scope of a preservation or redevelopment ordinance, a separate approval requirement applies, and design ordinances apply in some areas.

Social preservation ordinances (Milieuschutz) have applied since 2023 to southern Babelsberg and northern Teltower Vorstadt. In March 2026, the city announced the preparation of further ordinances for northern Babelsberg and the Baroque city extension. In these areas, demolition, structural changes and changes of use of residential buildings need additional approval. If you are buying a flat there in order to modernise it extensively or to combine two flats, ask at the town hall first.

In formally designated redevelopment areas and development areas, in Potsdam for example Krampnitz, the purchase contract also needs approval from the city under the German Federal Building Code (§ 144 and § 169 BauGB). The notary obtains it. Expect the transfer of ownership to take somewhat longer as a result.

Sources

• Valuation committee for land values in the state capital Potsdam: property market report 2025, published May 2026, version 1.2 of 3 August 2026
• BORIS Brandenburg, standard land values of the valuation committees in the State of Brandenburg
• Act on Setting the Tax Rate for Real Estate Transfer Tax of the State of Brandenburg, 6.5% since 1 July 2015
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin, inscribed 1990
• State capital Potsdam: general notes on approval requirements (heritage, by-law and planning law)
• Social preservation ordinance, southern Babelsberg, adopted 6 September 2023
• Official Gazette of the state capital Potsdam, 27 March 2026, resolutions to prepare ordinances for northern Babelsberg and the Baroque city extension
• § 144, § 169 and § 172 German Federal Building Code (Baugesetzbuch), projects requiring approval in redevelopment areas, development areas and preservation areas
• Court and Notary Costs Act, notary and land registry fees uniform across Germany