Off-market or open market: What the data says about discreet property sales

1. What “off-market” actually means

Off-market means the property is not listed publicly but offered to selected buyers. The spectrum ranges from a sale to a single vetted investor to a structured process with a handful of bidders. What all variants have in common is that the seller controls who learns about the property.

This is about more than discretion. The seller also decides which documents go to whom and when, how long offers remain valid and which buyers are admitted at all. That is the difference to marketing via portals, where any interested party can enquire.

2. How large the off-market segment is

How many properties change hands discreetly is by nature hard to measure. The most robust survey for Germany is the off-market study by adviser HPBA, produced with research firm bulwiengesa and based on an anonymous survey of 100 market participants with combined assets under management of almost €490bn. It estimates the segment at €40bn to €70bn per year. The study dates from 2022 and is the most recent of its kind.

For context: the well-known reports of the large brokerage houses mainly capture institutional transactions. According to the study, in the reference year 2020 the institutional market of €81.5bn compared with total officially recorded turnover of €310.4bn. A large part of the market therefore takes place outside the publicly reported statistics.

Residential is the core of this market. On the buy side, 45.9% of respondents’ off-market transactions were residential, followed by office at 29.6% and logistics at 11.2%. Most respondents acquired between a quarter and half of their assets off-market. Residential investor Empira estimates the off-market share in residential at around 50%, and asset manager KGAL states that it acquires around eight out of ten residential assets through off-market structures.

3. Why professionals buy discreetly

The study reaches a clear conclusion: off-market deals are “not primarily motivated by the purchase price, but rather by other factors such as transaction certainty”. The numbers support this. 61% of respondents report a positive success rate off-market, meaning more than every second transaction closes. On-market the figure is around 29%.

• Transaction certainty: Empira cites 70% to 80% certainty for its own off-market processes.
• Less effort: a buyer interviewed by the study authors names lower effort and higher transaction certainty as the two most important advantages.
• Flexible timing: KGAL stresses that bidding processes impose fixed timetables, while discreet processes can be aligned with the needs of both sides.
• Speed: buyers financing with equity are not subject to financing conditions and can decide accordingly faster.

On price, the picture is open. 26.8% of respondents expect no price difference between off-market and on-market sales; the remaining answers are split between higher and lower prices. One buyer puts it this way: a lower price is not necessarily expected, because sellers approach him directly since they know exactly what prices they can achieve. That is the precondition for a good discreet sale: the seller has to know the value of the property.

4. The market cycle matters

When off-market plays to its strengths also depends on the market phase. Valuer and investment adviser Sascha Hettrich describes the relationship in the study: the more demand and transparency, the fewer off-market deals. In phases of high demand, sellers usually want to sell to the highest bidder in a competitive process.

Today’s market is not such a seller’s market. The Ruhr real estate market report for the first half of 2026 notes that transaction processes in the second quarter were in part extended by geopolitical uncertainty and changed expectations of financing costs, and that investment decisions were weighed more carefully. At the same time, buyers and sellers are increasingly reaching agreement once their price expectations converge. In the Ruhr area’s commercial investment market, volume almost doubled year on year to around €756m in the first half of 2026 (H1 2025: €398m).

Since September 2026 another factor has come into play: the European Central Bank has raised its key rates by 0.25 percentage points. When financing becomes more expensive and decisions more cautious, an open bidding process is no sure thing. A few well-prepared, vetted buyers are then often worth more than many non-binding enquiries.

5. The residential investment market in 2026

For context, the major research houses are worth a look. Their figures differ because each house uses different minimum deal sizes, but the direction is clear: the residential investment market is stable.

The JLL figures imply an average deal size of around €33m and an average price of around €146,000 per flat (own calculation). These statistics therefore mainly reflect large portfolios. The market for individual apartment buildings, where most owners sell, is hardly captured.

Yet that is where momentum is strongest. Colliers splits the total residential market for 2025 into two segments: in mixed residential and commercial buildings, where semi-institutional and private buyers dominate, volume rose by 13% to €35.5bn, while the institutional segment fell by 14% to €9.1bn. Engel & Völkers counts around 38,000 transactions of such buildings in 2025, up 10%, at an average gross rental yield of 5.4% and 4.1% in the A cities.

These buyers are rarely found through portals. Private investors, family offices and mid-sized portfolio holders prefer to buy through personal contacts, and that is exactly where discreet sales come in.

6. Costs and legal framework

The same rules apply regardless of the sales route. In NRW, real estate transfer tax of 6.5% is payable on the purchase of a property. On a price of €2m that is €130,000, plus notary and land registry fees. The statutory split of the broker’s commission between buyer and seller under section 656c of the German Civil Code applies only to the purchase of a flat or single-family house by a consumer. For apartment buildings the commission is freely negotiable. The seller must provide an energy performance certificate in every case.

Share deals, i.e. selling company shares instead of the property itself, play a major role in the professional off-market segment: according to the study, 57% of respondents’ off-market purchases and sales were share deals. Since 1 July 2021, however, real estate transfer tax is already triggered when 90% rather than 95% of the shares change hands. For private owners of individual buildings, a straightforward sale of the property (asset deal) is the norm.

7. How a professional discreet sale works

• Valuation and strategy: income value based on rents, multiples and cap rates from the valuation committees. This determines the price target and sales route.
• Documents: prepare rent roll, leases, service charge statements, energy certificate and land register extract in full before the first buyer is approached.
• Buyer selection: approach only buyers whose criteria match the property and who can prove equity or financing.
• Anonymised first approach: short profile without address, full information only after a confidentiality agreement.
• Viewings and offers: a clear deadline for written offers, so that several buyers bid in parallel and comparably.
• Letter of intent and due diligence: exclusivity only for a limited period and only after a binding offer.
• Purchase agreement and notary: agree the draft early so no time is lost between agreement and notarisation.