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

Thanks for the presentation. You are happy and were able to absorb the additional cost - that is the most important thing. Because of the enormous deviation from the original plan, we eventually stopped calculating and just went ahead. Absolutely deadly if you can't manage that, but cool when you really finish it as desired. The individual decisions for the supposedly better or the desired special thing are expensive. Now the tax office wants a cost breakdown for the taxes and I don’t feel like recalculating it, since that would surely put me in a bad mood. I just let it be estimated and accept whatever comes. Hats off to the planners whose plan works out and to the audacity of those who stretch the financing to the limit. I have friends who have achieved extraordinary things and also see examples here in the forum. To the average disciplined builder, I simply recommend adding 20% to the cost estimate.

To live modestly means for many simply not to afford everything in everyday life that one could afford. When planning a house, this is just much more difficult than everyday consumption.

hm that's why we had cost estimates made for all trades and optimized them until everything we wanted was included. We took the loan with THAT amount. And in the end, we stayed below the amount through discounts, etc.

hm that’s why we had cost estimates made for all trades and optimized them until everything we wanted was included. With THAT amount we then took out the loan. And in the end, thanks to discounts etc., we stayed under the amount.

Encouraging to see that it can work! We have also been obtaining offers and transparent individual prices from the house building company for months now, to know what to expect! I really hope the plan works out. And : thanks for sharing. Overall, it is quite encouraging that you planned well when you say that all the price increases came from your own decisions for special requests/features. Most other reports rather relate to “issues” that were forgotten to be calculated and that construction companies do not always point out either.

For many, living modestly also simply means not affording everything in everyday life that one could afford.

When it comes to house planning, that is just much more difficult than everyday consumption

I see that a bit differently.

Please look up the definition of "modest."

A small example: Just because I buy a fully equipped 5 Series for a list price of 120k instead of a Porsche Cayenne for a list price of 160k, it does not mean that I live modestly, even though I could afford the Porsche.

In my opinion, it is the same with a new build. Building a house according to your own wishes and ideas has pretty much nothing to do with modesty. Anyone who really lives/has to live modestly does not afford a new build or simply cannot afford it.

The OP writes "sparsam", not modest. That is something different for me as well.
In any case, I am happy about this report because it is helpful for my assessment. Since we have similar wishes