Tips and tools

Real estate tips and checklists you can run today

Short, practical sheets for the tasks that quietly eat a day: a service-charge run, a spreadsheet migration, a listing that clears the portal on the first try. Work each one against the data you already have.

Start free

This is the pocket version. Each sheet is a checklist you can work through in a sitting, no setup and no template required. When you want the full method behind one, the guides go deeper, and the templates save you the typing. The checklists that touch leases, Nebenkosten and portals assume the Manage side of REPM; the development ones run from the free trial.

Checklists you can run today

Two of the jobs most likely to go wrong when they are done from memory.

Service charges

Before your first Nebenkostenabrechnung

Run this before you generate a single statement. Most disputes trace back to one of these being skipped.

[ ] The billing period is closed and the 12-month deadline under § 556 Abs. 3 BGB is on the calendar
[ ] Every cost you plan to pass on is one the lease agrees to and the Betriebskostenverordnung (BetrKV) allows
[ ] An allocation key (Umlageschlüssel) is set per cost type: area, consumption, persons or unit
[ ] Heating and hot-water meter readings are in, with 50 to 70 percent billed by consumption per Heizkostenverordnung
[ ] Vacancy periods are flagged so the owner, not the tenants, carries empty-unit costs
[ ] Advance payments (Vorauszahlungen) collected per tenant match the ledger
[ ] Tenants who moved mid-period are split by the day, not rounded to the month

Runs on the Manage side

Portals

Getting a listing ready for ImmobilienScout24

What has to be true before you publish, so the advert goes live clean and does not bounce back.

[ ] Energy certificate (Energieausweis) to hand: type, value, class, heating type and year, which the GEG requires in the advert
[ ] Photos in room order: exterior, living, kitchen, bath, bedrooms, then the floor plan (Grundriss) last
[ ] Cover photo chosen deliberately, because the first image is the one that wins the click
[ ] Exposé text with the facts up top: rooms, area, floor, availability, then the description
[ ] Cold rent (Kaltmiete), service charges and heating cost shown separately, plus the deposit
[ ] Commission line (Provision) correct for this deal
[ ] Address precise enough to geocode, so the map pin lands on the building, not the street

How syndication works

Getting your data in and onto the map

The two moves that make everything after them easier.

Migration

Migrating off a spreadsheet in an afternoon

What to bring across and what to leave in the old file. Clean input here saves a week of correcting records later.

Bring into REPM

One row per unit, not per building, so split any combined cells
A stable unit reference you already use: door number, ALKIS or cadastral parcel, or your internal ID
The current lease per unit: tenant, start date, cold rent, advance payment, deposit
The address in separate columns: street, house number, postcode, city

Leave behind

Colour coding that only means something to you, turn it into a status column instead
Merged header rows and totals rows, because REPM sums for you
Formulas that reach into other sheets, bring the values and rebuild the logic in the cost cockpit
Duplicate tenant rows for one unit, keep the current lease and archive the history separately

Get the data-import template

Geocoding

Getting your properties on the map

Address quality is the whole game for geocoding. Get these right once and every pin, filter and portal export follows.

[ ] Street and house number in separate fields, with the number including any suffix such as 12a
[ ] A five-digit German postcode (PLZ) and a city that actually matches it
[ ] No floor, unit or c/o text in the street field, which pushes the pin off the building
[ ] Country set, so a Würzburg address is not matched somewhere else
[ ] District (Ortsteil) in its own field, never appended to the street
[ ] Re-geocode after you correct an address, because a stale pin does not move itself

See the property map

Reference sheets

Two lists worth keeping open while you set records up or read a report.

Leases

Ten fields every lease record should hold

If a lease record carries these ten, your rent roll, service-charge run and renewal reminders all have what they need.

1. The unit reference the lease points at: one lease to one unit, or a clear link when it spans several
2. Tenant or tenants, in the legal name that will appear on the contract
3. Lease start, and either an end date or unbefristet (open-ended)
4. Cold rent (Kaltmiete) and the date it last changed
5. Advance payment (Nebenkosten-Vorauszahlung) and what it is meant to cover
6. Deposit (Kaution): the amount, the form and where it is held
7. Rent-adjustment basis: index (Indexmiete), step (Staffelmiete) or none
8. Notice period and any minimum term (Kündigungsfrist and Mindestlaufzeit)
9. The area used for apportionment (Wohnfläche in m²)
10. A payment reference, so incoming rent reconciles without hand-matching

Leases in Manage

Development

Reading a DIN 276 variance the right way

A red cost group is not always an overrun. Read it in this order before you raise an alarm.

1. Compare like with like: plan against the same cost-plan version, not last week's guess
2. Read at the cost-group level first, KG 300 (Bauwerk - Baukonstruktionen) and KG 400 (Bauwerk - Technische Anlagen), then drill in
3. Separate committed from forecast: an order placed is not the same as an invoice paid
4. Ask whether a red group is a real overrun or a timing difference, because a bill booked early reads like an overspend
5. Look at KG 700 (Baunebenkosten) when nothing else explains the drift, since fees and financing hide there
6. Note the reserve: if a group has eaten its contingency, the risk has moved even when the total still looks fine

The cost cockpit

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a template to start?

No. Every sheet here runs against the data you already keep. If you are coming off a spreadsheet, the data-import template on the templates page saves you the re-typing, but it is optional and none of these checklists depend on it.

Where do the longer explanations live?

In the guides. The tips are the run-today short version; the guides go into DIN 276, the Nebenkostenabrechnung and ImmobilienScout24 syndication in full, with the reasoning behind each step.

Which of these can I do in the free trial?

The development-side ones. Reading a DIN 276 variance and migrating off a spreadsheet both work in REPM Lite. Leases, Nebenkosten and portal listings are on Pro and above, so the service-charge, lease and listing sheets need a Pro or Enterprise environment.

Start with one checklist and one real property

Open REPM Lite free for 30 days and run the DIN 276 or the migration sheet on your own numbers. The service-charge, lease and listing sheets come with Pro.

Start free

No template neededGrounded in DIN 276 and the BetrKVImmobilienScout24 and OpenImmo ready