You need a license if you want to offer real estate commercially:

• The brokerage of real estate
• The brokerage of loan agreements (except real estate loans for consumers),
• The management of residential property or joint property of apartment owners
• The preparation or execution of building projects in your own name or on behalf of others.

In this sense, you must apply for a license if you wish to carry out one of the following activities:

• Brokering real estate and rights equivalent to real estate, brokering the sale, encumbrance, letting or leasing of real estate, residential property and contracts relating to mortgages and land charges,
• Brokerage of commercial premises and residential premises, i.e. all types of room rentals including leases and subleases, i.e. also apartment and room brokerage (except accommodation brokerage).
• Brokerage of loans (except real estate financing for consumers).
• Planning or implementation of construction projects using third-party assets (e.g. with assets of tenants, leaseholders or other beneficiaries or of applicants for acquisition or usage rights).
  • It makes no difference here whether you act in your own name vis-à-vis contractual partners (property developer) or whether you make it clear that you are acting on behalf of a third party (building supervisor).
  • This includes, for example, submitting a building application, commissioning architects and craftsmen, as well as obtaining and drawing down financing, taking out insurance, calculating future rents, etc.).
• Management of rented apartments or the common property of condominium owners within the meaning of the German Condominium Act. You are an administrator, for example, if you
  
  • implement resolutions of the condominium owners and ensure that the house rules are enforced;
  • take the measures necessary for the proper maintenance and repair of the common property;
  • arrange for and receive all payments and services associated with the ongoing management of the common property;
  • manage the monies collected.

No authorization is required for:

• Credit institutions for which a license has been granted in accordance with the KWG and whose branches are companies.
• Capital management companies for which a license has been granted in accordance with the German Investment Code.
• Traders who only arrange loans to finance the sale of goods or services provided by them or who provide evidence of the opportunity to conclude such contracts,
• branches of companies domiciled in another member state of the European Union that are permitted to broker loans between credit institutions in accordance with the German Banking Act, insofar as their activities are limited to brokering loans between credit institutions in accordance with the German Trade Regulation Act, and
• the conclusion of contracts for the timeshare use of residential buildings within the meaning of the German Civil Code or the brokerage of such contracts.

For the brokerage of real estate consumer loan agreements, you require a different, separate license under the Trade, Commerce and Industry Regulation Act. Real estate consumer loan agreements are loan agreements for a fee between an entrepreneur as lender and a consumer as borrower.