Romans wrote a lot of BS about 'the Germanic tribes', mostly because they defined 'Germans' as 'those who are not like us and who live outside the borders of the empire'. This definition lumps quite a lot of people together, while still throwing in loads of cultural bias as well.

It is much more interesting to look at 'people who lived outside the Empire' outside of their classification as 'Germanics'. We then see that settlements change over this time period. In the centuries BC (and up to 200 or so), the regular person would live on his own farmstead, within viewing distance (or walking distance) of his neighbours. A farmstead would have its own fences, wells, and outbuildings and would generally be mostly self-sufficient, though some regional specialisation (some areas focused on cattle raising, some on cereal cultivation etc.) did take place. Some areas that were particularly suitable for resource exploitation (close to forest for suitable timber, or close to iron ores for iron mining, or near the sea for salt extraction, or near a peat bog for peat digging) did have this 'industry' as a household activity 'on the side', but this is secondary to the main function of the household as a farm.

Around the 2nd century or so, the village (collection of farmsteads) becomes more popular. While villages did exist in the earlier period as well (but were not the norm), the village of the late roman period becomes more common and more formalised. We now see a collection of these farmsteads. Archaeologists have tried to make statements about elite dominance within these farms on the basis of the size of the stable (and hence the capacity for cattle, and hence wealth), but this is very difficult. Generally, it seems that farms within a village were 'equal'. This does not mean that everyone within the village was equal, just that everyone lived in the same kind of house. It is also later, in the Migration period, that the size differences between households within a village gets more expression, and the larger farmstead collects also more small outbuildings, including a temple and more craft workshops. The first of these is Gudme in Denmark around the year 200, but by 400 these kind of places exist in many regions.

Parallel to this, you should also keep in mind that in the south of 'Germania', in modern Southern Germany and Austria, village organisation had already taken place in much earlier periods, including task differentiation between households.

We can see no traces of nomadism in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark in this period. They did travel to cattle grazing grounds in the summer, but this type of seasonal movement, called transhumance, is restricted to cattle herders, and not common within society in general. It is also highly regulated and occurs within fixed 'grazing areas', relatively close to the stationary 'home base', and not at all 'migratory'.

Farms (and hamlets) also did move around within a landscape, so a field that in one decade might have been used for grain, might become a building plot a decade later, and grazing lands 30 years after. However, this cycle of rebuilding the farm (related to pest control) also happens within a local area.