Logically I would put this at the end of my comment but don’t want it to be overlooked. One should know about the rent control law in Germany. Here is a link: https://conny.de/en/rent/rent-control/information Disclaimer, this site also offers services of reviewing rental agreements and is included here only for information purposes and not as an endorcement. Another site, non-commerical with objective information - but a lot of history and extra background information not necessarily so pertinent to just rent contrl: https://housingrightswatch.org/sites/de … 4-Art1.pdf
Beppi is right that furnished apartments are rather rare in Germany but are becoming more popular. The whole Airbnb concept caught on and a new business model has come about with people investing in apartments, furnishing them and renting them out. And the whole reason is money. There are rent control laws in Germany but one way around them is to charge a premium for furnishings, in reality often multiples of the otherwise legally allowed rent. There are exceptions but like Beppi mentioned, for longer or indefinite stays, it is usually cheaper to buy cheap furniture, say at EKEA, even if one simple gives it away when they leave.
But some landlords also look for longer term furnished rentals of at least some months rather than the short vacation-model which requires different management and cleaning strategies. One reason is that there is a pushback in many European cities where the Airbnb type places have made competition for hotels but more annoying to locals is that it tends to push up the overall rent levels in touristic destinations. Some cities have outlawed it or slap on extra taxes so it is not so profitable.
One tip, although it will not fit to everyone, or maybe just temporarily, is that one often finds adverts for rooms in shared apartments to rent on pin-boards at any university. Often students go off for a semester or two and don’t want to lose their room, or sometimes even a whole apartment. They will then sublet it for the specific time, known in Germany as Zwischenmieten; often at cost and very often furnished as they would otherwise need to find a place to store all of their furniture. If one finds a good offer but is staying longer, then they can look in the meantime for a longer term solution. Shared apartments, known as WGs, in German usually fit best to young people but not necessarily just students. But like mentioned, with luck one might even find a whole apartment as a sublet rather than just a room.
