At Café Try, Zeil 5, 60311 Frankfurt am Main © Evelyn Dragan
McGee and family at Café Try, Frankfurt © Evelyn Dragan for FT
Frankfurt has a reputation for dullness, particularly among outsiders. Even Germans — especially those from Munich or Leipzig — cannot conceal a grin when they ask how I am enjoying life. The boring tag has come into focus since the UK’s vote in 2016 to leave the EU. Where might thousands of bankers and their families restart their lives if they have to leave London?
Frankfurt should have been the clear favourite, given that it is the financial centre of Germany, Europe’s economic engine, and home to the headquarters of the European Central Bank. But last year, Politico reported the likelihood of a Frankfurt “Brexodus” has diminished after bankers’ spouses visited the city and refused to move. It is easy to see why: Frankfurt’s attractions are not for tourists. They are for its residents.
At Café Try, Zeil 5, 60311 Frankfurt am Main ©
Comet, one of McGee's two rescue dogs from Hong Kong, is welcome at Café Try © Evelyn Dragan for FT
My wife Eleni, our five-month-old baby and I love it here. The city may not inspire poets, but we endure none of the daily frustrations of bigger cities, such as traffic, high rent and noise. It is possible to walk or cycle just about anywhere. Once you accept Frankfurt on its own terms, it is easy to fall in love with it.
Locals call Frankfurt “the tallest village in Germany” — a reference to the downtown skyscrapers that are something of a novelty. When I lived in New York and Hong Kong, I allowed 40 minutes for the journey to work.
In Frankfurt, commutes are so short that my wife and I take turns to cycle 10 minutes home at lunchtimes to walk our dogs. If I feel like running to the office, I add five miles to my route to make it worthwhile. When I have a meeting at 2pm, I stroll out of the office at 1:45pm, unlock a shared bike with my phone and still arrive early.
The city’s location, smack-bang in the middle of Europe, is hard to beat. Paris, Brussels and Berlin are a few hours’ ride away in a comfortable, WiFi-equipped train travelling at 200km per hour. Spontaneous trips to London are within reach. We have spent long weekends running in the Swiss Alps, hiking up volcanoes in Italy and speeding along the autobahn to see family in Denmark or to tour the beaches of Holland.
On Ignatz Bubitz Brücke that connects Innenstadt & Sachsenhausen with a view of the Financial District and Alte Brücke © Evelyn Dragan
Ignatz Bubitz bridge with the financial district in the background © Evelyn Dragan for FT
Property rental prices have risen in the past few years, with condominium costs up 12.5 per cent between 2016 and 2017, according to Ziegert, a property consultancy. But by global standards, they are still low — half the price of London, according to Numbeo.
The rent I paid for a studio in Hong Kong — HK$15,500 ($1,900) per month — was enough for a two-bedroom, two-storey loft in Frankfurt, complete with a patio for our dogs and next to an enormous park. We were delighted to have a real kitchen for the first time in years.
Patrick McGee © Evelyn Dragan
Patrick McGee © Evelyn Dragan for FT
It feels like a village here, albeit an international one. Our birth preparation course included Italian, Indian, Greek, Canadian, British, German, Japanese and American parents. When Eleni went into labour, we strolled for 10 minutes to the hospital. Later, when our daughter caught her first bug, we crossed the street to our family doctor, who referred us to the children’s hospital on the next street.
Healthcare is excellent. We received routine ultrasounds, support from our midwife and paid leave from work. Tax-payers, regardless of whether they are locals or foreigners, are eligible for up to 14 months of state-supported parental leave, split between the two parents. After 14 weeks of full pay for the mother, both parents can take time off and receive two-thirds of their monthly salary, capped at €1,800 a month.
Our tax bill roughly tripled from the 15 per cent rate in Hong Kong, but it is money well spent. If we stay here long enough for our daughter to need childcare, it will be a pleasure to pay the €200 monthly bill — subsidised by the state.
At Café Try, Zeil 5, 60311 Frankfurt am Main © Evelyn Dragan
Café Try, Zeil 5, 60311 Frankfurt © Evelyn Dragan for FT
So bankers’ spouses: you are missing out. Frankfurt is a great city for its residents, and it is easy to escape when you need to. We already worry about where we might be living in our next posting, most likely crouched in a small apartment after a long commute. As a friend has warned us: “Frankfurt can be a difficult place to move to — but it’s even more difficult to leave.”
View from Tram Station Allerheiligentor (Innenstadt) with the Financial District in the Background © Evelyn Dragan
View from tram station with the financial district in thebackground © Evelyn Dragan for FT

Inside knowledge

Maingold is a trendy restaurant that won our hearts when the staff were overwhelmingly nice to us the night we locked ourselves out of our flat. Their hummus is divine.
Blaues Wasser This restaurant on the Main river becomes an outdoor beach hangout for cocktails and dinner in the summer. Conversation starter: it used to be a brothel.
Solzer A rustic spot dating from 1893. This is where you should try traditional Frankfurt food, like Grüne Sosse (Green Sauce) and Schnitzel. Wash it all down with some Apfelwein.

How local property experts view Frankfurt

Sven Henkes, managing director of Ziegert, the property consultant

“Frankfurt is more than just a banking and airport hub, it is one of the fastest growing cities. Consequently, Frankfurt is redrawing its skyline with a large number of skyscraper projects — unique in Germany.
“Aside from the large number of skyscrapers a renewed old part of downtown Frankfurt as well as a steadily improving quality of life are a magnet for people from all over the world. This will be driven even more by Brexit in the upcoming years due to relocations from London to the Main metropolis.”

Amin Aschdjai-Benissi, Engel & Völkers Frankfurt

“Frankfurt will see an upswing in the coming months and years, as many companies in the financial sector are relocating to Frankfurt as a result of Brexit. This will further boost the positive development of the Frankfurt real estate market.
“Therefore, homeowners can expect to see value added. However, Frankfurt can not be compared to London or Paris in terms of cultural diversity. If you want that, you should consider an apartment in Berlin.”

Buying guide

What you can buy for . . .
€1m A four-bedroom apartment in a historic building in the exclusive Frankfurt Westend
€2m A three-bedroom apartment on the 23rd floor of the new development “FOUR Frankfurt” in a prime location of the Central Business District
€5m A modern seven-bedroom villa in the wealthy Kronberg suburb with pool, spa and underground parking and furnished to the highest standards
Patrick McGee is the FT’s Frankfurt correspondent
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" The city may not inspire poets" !!!???
Where, tell me, was Goethe born?
"I add five miles to my route to make it worthwhile"
Showoff ;)
«When I lived in New York and Hong Kong, I allowed 40 minutes for the journey to work. In Frankfurt, commutes are so short that my wife and I take turns to cycle 10 minutes home at lunchtimes to walk our dogs. [ ... ] The rent I paid for a studio in Hong Kong — HK$15,500 ($1,900) per month — was enough for a two-bedroom, two-storey loft in Frankfurt, complete with a patio for our dogs and next to an enormous park. We were delighted to have a real kitchen for the first time in years.»
That's just like COMMUNISM! It is obscene that in Frankfurt (and most of Germany) property owners are so exploited by parasitical renters and buyers that the latter can afford to pay so little. :-)
Part of the reason that happens is that Germany has many cities of some importance, and new job opportunities are not all concentrated in one single "golden tory area" like the Oxford-London-Cambridge triangle in the UK.
Mandrocles
Yes
The UK should consider moving the entire central government (Parliament, the ministries, the civil service) lock, stock and barrel to somewhere outside of Southern England - like Birmingham
And end up as dull as Frankfurt? No thanks. Germany is by Dullest place on earth. Food, culture, lifestyle. I can’t wait to move back into civilisation.
try Cafe Wacker; superb coffee and great variety of teas and coffees to choose from for home use; close to Hauptwache
Intermittent Observer of Creative Destruction Very good indeed, I'm there frequently. We have one across the street from the FT office.
Patrick McGee, Frankfurt Correspondent Intermittent Observer of Creative Destruction Sounds like you live near to Nordend West or Bornheim (The hospitals and Gunthesrburg park) I loved the area when i lived there.
That's all very well, but Paris is still the place. Yesterday afternoon we were on lockdown in Le Bon Marché while the Gilets Jaunes did their thing outside. I doubt Frankfurt can match that for Saturday afternoon family entertainment.
Plus no other city matches the smell of urine in the Metro early in the morning.
ParisianBrit Well if you walk around the streets of the main train station you will find OD'd bums , dead bodies occasional, tramps and ho's all mingling around. First time in my life ive seen people cooking up in public, now that culture.
My main issue with Frankfurt was that it was very hard to meet anyone who was originally from there - it was mainly a transient, expat community and it felt shallow and unsettling. I was much happier in Duesseldorf where I made friends with many people from around that area who lived there permanently (as I had planned to do.) However, I had hands down more fun when I moved back to London :-) I’d agree, however that Frankfurt may be a better place to have young children than London, for the reasons Patrick mentions. It’s very civilised and pleasant.
Minasama Our secret: dogs. We made our closest friends because our dogs are very sociable. Having a baby was also smart. We now attend swim classes (in German) and music classes (in English), which means we meet a good mix of locals and expats. But in general I agree; it's not like Canada where you can easily make friends with the waiter, bank teller, barista, receptionist, etc etc.
@Patrick Mcgee - thank you for the reply. I can imagine having dogs and a baby would make a real difference in terms of offering inroads into the community - parenthood offers many opportunities to meet people. My experience in Frankfurt was as a late 20s single person so quite different. But still a good experience on balance.

Minasama should have found a local girl :)

Well done firstly on rescuing those dogs and secondly on taking them with you! 🙏
Tonight's Taggeschau has a program about the exploding cost of living and rents in Frankfurt: https://programm.ard.de/TV/tagesschau24/Programmkalender/?sendung=287211080922756
It's not just the 10,000+ bankers who are expected to move after Brexit, the city's population is already growing at an unsustainable 15,000 per year.
Perhaps, but just a look at Dublin - *there* you will see and encounter a *real housing crisis*.
There are plenty of houses and apartments going up, such as this one (only walking minutes away from the Banking Quarter):
If I wanted to live a boring life in a boring place, I would live in the countryside where I can at least be bored in actual 'bucolic surroundings', most certainly not in or around Frankfurt...
Is a Burgher of Frankfurt a Frankfurter?
Q Yes
Spiffing!
@Patrick
You should let me take you to some of Frankfurt's many speakeasies and underground dives. One of the big difficulties for newcomers is the culture is not sold to you and in your face. You have to find it, by word of mouth usually.
More often that not you will spend some time trying to find an address in a salubrious area you've been given before someone in the know disappears up an alley way and into a tiny door. You knock on the door, a shutter opens and closes, you knock again and go through this process for 5 mins before finally you are buzzed in and descend into a glorious cellar cocktail bar.
It's all here - just not laid out on the high street for consumers of culture.
South Sea Co. (Brexit refugee in Frankfurt) I can think of friends who would take you up on this, but we have a baby now so aside from my late-night run I'm now at home every night from about 6pm.
In the late 70s I remember a superb Brazilian nightclub in Sachsenhausen. The co-owner was a wonderful singer and you could drink until dawn. I lived further west along the street and would time my walk home/shower to be able to catch the first tram to Hauptwache, load up on a McDonald's dessert, then catch the new S1 schnellbahn out to the airport where I worked for a decidedly unusual Lebanese business whose offices were also being visited by what I now realise were the US security services. The sex and drugs scene was, my friends assured me, only marginally less hardcore than Hamburg or Berlin. Oh, and the Opera had just reopened and Habermas was still around. Frankfurt was not boring, if you spoke German...
40mins for a commute in HK?!?! most expats dont live in Shenzhen
Commutes here are deceptively long. I live less than 2km from my office, yet the commute is still at least 20 minutes unless I take a taxi.
Xanderson I lived in Stanley. Commute or not, you get the point. Hong Kong is absurdly functional, but nevertheless it can take time to get to various meetings. Cycling inner-city is non-existent.
45% tax for €200 a month child care....no thanks...I will curate my own life style for a
lower tax Rate.
Not sure where you live, but when I lived in New York I was paying nearly that much in tax (federal, state, city, social security) and then child care would still cost a fortune ;)
Rusty Shackleford NYState and NYCity income tax rates are relatively high. Add to those the federal income-related FICA taxation of 15.3% (employer/employee, but effectively employee-borne) on incomes up to US$120,000 or so. NYCity expensive for that reason as well, not only due to the absurd cost of housing. Public transportation good and cheap however.
Comparing NYC to Frankfurt?.... enough said.
For almost all people (including most though not all bankers) Frankfurt offers a much much better quality of life than London - better, cheaper housing, cleaner than London, short commutes, good outdoor spaces and less overcast weather
But it is obviously smaller and with fewer attractions - it still has plenty in terms of restaurants and things to do, (and is surprisingly international) but it is not Berlin and certainly not London in terms of the sheer number of cultural activities, nightlife etc available
You are much better placed in Frankfurt to get to lots of physical activities lie skiing and sailing than you would be in London
So I can imagine someone who is 25 will like London a lot more but someone who is 45 with a couple of kids may prefer Frankfurt
Working in Frankfurt also offers a much easier rural life than in London - lots of well paid professionals in Frankfurt choose to live in bucolic surroundings in countryside towns with a much easier commute in to their job than the equivalent home counties commuters into London have (for a start you can drive in very easily)
Frankfurt also has a lot of legacy American things due to the sheer number of Americans (military) based around there during the Cold War
I personally think Americans based in London would be happier with getting moved to Frankfurt than a lot of Europeans based in London would be
Things like promotion prospects are a bit of a red herring in this calculation because Brexit changes where the best place to be is - I expect there's early mover advantage in some businesses in going to Frankfurt
You must have bought a lot of real estate. Sounds desperate to me and so untrue. Bucolic surroundings? Hofheim? Kelkheim? Höchst? Or uptight Kronberg where my fellow German have signposts: dont turn in my gateway...
Superfritz
Just because its bucolic doesn't mean it isn't uptight
If you don't like uptight, don't move to Germany - or franklu anywhere in Northern Europe
In fact, if uptight people are an issue then the UK isn't the best choice either
Move to Spain or Italy
No, I don't own German real estate nor will I be moving there - though I would move to Berlin if I could
There was an article here some time ago of a reputable firm in finance that moved to Frankfurt. A year later it moved back to London because all its employees were unhappy, bored and unfulfilled in “Mainhattan”
There is a small slightly more characterful part called Sachsenhausen where you can go drinking that was not totally bombed to smithereens in World War II.
However, Frankfurt is crap. I know. I spent 50% of the time in my last employment there. I have never been so bored or unfulfilled in my entire life.
HartleyHare Well, it seems your main activity is drinking, so maybe that is why you were bored................
HartleyHare Unlucky. I found it boring at first but as a previous commenter mentioned, it depends on what stage of life you are at. When I don't need to go drinking every night or clubbing to the latest underground places, and maybe you have a family Frankfurt is great. I had to grow into it admittedly.
If you miss C&A, there is a big one in the 1960s rebuilt bit of the Zeil.
I don’t get this whole family argument. Even with a young child it is possible to have fun in a city that’s more vibrant. Think of the museums in London where your little one can learn and explore about science history etc. The food scene is also far more varied. Germans just love their mediocre Italian restaurants that I loath - why pay for food that I could easily whip up myself using ready sauces.
willst an invite to dinner at yours sounds delightful :P

If you have read 'Liars Poker' (Michael Lewis) or worked at Salomon Brothers:
Frankfurt posting = Equities in Dallas.
The death of ambition.
The death of ambition is the birth of happiness.
Ash Nawani
You are right about that.
The audience for this piece - bankers - tend to be the reverse and would be unhappy in Frankfurt, I submit.
Mullah Nasreddin
Probably the most insightful comment today .... the inimitable Mullah N would approve.

Within reason.
Probably Germany's most open-minded and foreigner-friendly city.
I used to work there following a move from Munich (which I did not regret).
But what about the night life? I spent some time in Frankfurt in the ‘90s and had a grand time. I’ve hazy memories of the airport nightclub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_Gray_(club) , lol.
paddy unfortunately it is no longer there and is replaced by a one off night each summer. Last time was not even in the Airport. :/
Find me a correspondent who thrashes the place he’s just been sent to by his newspaper. On top of that of course the author is uber-enthousiastic about Frankfurt, especially since he has lived in NY and HK, otherwhise this change of cities would look like he’d been sent to purgatory and he would be the loughingstock of his colleagues. Tbf Frankfurt is a lovely city, but you can’t compare apple with pears, can you? Frankfurt will never play in the league of the London, NY or HK, least so when it comes to financial services...