400k house estimated - became a 470k house / an experience report

There is a gradient. In the North and East and possibly in rural Bavaria far from Munich, simple people still often build, my neighbor, employed as a painter at a boat construction company, she a nurse, three children. Such people build modestly, there are no roller shutter coverings, no garage, no expensive home technology, they and we also ended up with a house without land at around 200. City, building land expensive, that already sorts it out, only the happy few build, you only build once, you don't want to save at the wrong end, result, highly indebted people who have to strain themselves for the bank into old age with their 600-800 thousand euro palaces. Meanwhile, less would be more. But if you pay 200 for the land, you don't want to live for 200, it has to be better.

You can't save that much there either. The simplest house without a basement and garage costs 250k plus additional costs plus land. If you are in Bavaria, it's always over 500k. And whether 500 or 700 doesn't really make much of a difference anymore...

I don't know what you want to say with that.

Something logical - high collective bargaining coverage correlates significantly with an overall higher wage level.

And you mean that because collective bargaining coverage was higher in the past than it is today, more people were able to build a house back then? Sorry, but I don't believe that. Because in the areas where that matters, no one can afford a house.

By the way, I just did a quick search. I just found an article in Spiegel that refers to figures from Dr. Klein. It compared home purchases in 2007 and 2017, asking whether it was easier in the past. The result was that in 2017, the ratio between total costs (including financing costs, etc.) to debt freedom was lower than in 2007, except for Munich. (By now, maybe two or three more cities as well). The reason was that the lower financing costs balanced out the price increases.
Only the entry barrier became higher, because the required equity also increased. So here we are again at inheritance and gifts.
That happens significantly more today than in the past.

That is all correct so far. Basically, it doesn’t matter how the ratio of interest to purchase price is, because in the end I’m only interested in how much I have to pay per month in total in order to have finished the loan before retirement. I don’t want to complain either. Many teacher couples in my family bought houses in the 80s and 90s. Some still had 8% interest rates. Due to questionable financing models, they still haven’t paid off their terraced houses to this day.

On our street, we are the only ones who managed everything on our own. Everyone else received a substantial contribution from their parents or two first-league footballers still live there, but with them the combined value of their first and second cars is already worth more than our house.

I also don’t take it for granted to be able to build like this, not because we both have academic degrees, saved disciplined for equity starting right after entering the job market, etc., but if someone had told me back in the DM days that I would one day live in a house worth 1.7 million marks, I would have imagined something different than a 165 sqm house (now I’m talking like I’m over 80).

What somehow can’t be right, though, is that in some regions even two high earners can’t afford to buy a 100 sqm apartment if they want to pay it off in a reasonable amount of time.

Ultimately, some regional differences are no longer appropriate. One example: A while ago, two offers for two almost identical houses were hanging in a Dortmund bank. Same look, same size, practically the same year of construction, similar plot size. One was located in the south of Dortmund and was supposed to cost €990,000, the other was in Fröndenberg (24 KM away, rural area) and was priced at €460,000. This difference is somehow unjustifiable.

People like to get used to comfort .......but must also manage without it if necessary.....

I have designed things for myself so that everything that is difficult to realize later can be well planned from the beginning (more expensive to invest), examples:

- conventional electrical/KNX
- roller shutters/venetian blinds
- plaster/brick cladding
- controlled residential ventilation/manual ventilation
- ceiling height
- insulation
- geothermal heat pump/gas


where I did not want to spend much money:
- bathrooms
- painting work
- floor coverings
- interior doors
- furniture (except for the kitchen)
- lighting


Nobody gets anything for free, so it is understandable when people invest in their own home....


Some go boating and relax that way, others sit in their house and relax as well.......some have both