Affordable homeownership: Buy or pre-fabricated house?

Hello everyone,
we are not proud homeowners yet. We currently live in a large and actually really nice rental apartment, but we can't stand it here anymore because of the neighbors above and below us.

At the moment, we are looking in all directions. Specifically: a new apartment for rent or an affordable house to buy (or maybe even a prefabricated house?).

I prefer the idea of buying. My partner is a bit more uncertain about it (risk, etc.).

As things stand with us, we unfortunately have hardly any equity at the moment (around 10,000 EUR). I have been self-employed for about ten years (medium to good figures) and my partner still needs 7 months until she is permanently civil-servant (upper service).

What do you think would be the best, but still affordable solution?

My thoughts are as follows:
With a rented apartment, we pay money month after month again and effectively get nothing out of it.
When buying an older house, there would later be many great opportunities, but also a lot of work.
When buying a prefabricated house, the quality is not as good, but you would have something newer that comes closest to your own requirements.

I would be interested in your (experienced) opinion on the subject.

Best regards

Prefab house equally cheap, you think. That is not the case. A prefab house from Scanhaus Marlow Marlow or other budget providers is always on the level of a solid house. A luxury prefab house from Okal Haus or Schwörer or similar is more expensive. Existing property: if you find something good, go for it. But that depends on where you look. In urban areas, good and cheap properties never come on the market, but go through connections or internally within families. Take a look at townhouses. They can be relatively affordable, and living there is not that bad, especially if you have an end-terrace house. Karsten

Look at that, how one can be so mistaken with prefabricated houses. Thank you! Well, luckily we live and look in a quite rural area in NRW (OWL). You can still find some bargains here - if you're lucky. I don't think the idea of a terraced house is bad either. I will discuss it with my better half. Many thanks Nordlys.

Hello!
It's almost the same situation with us. We also wanted to buy, but the market doesn't offer anything reasonable or contemporary, and by now we both have developed an aversion to old houses (too much renovation backlog, too few craftsmanship skills). So we decided on a prefab house.
The quarrelsome house dragon in the apartment below was another argument in favor of building a house. In 1-2 years with a child, I’d rather not deal with the foreseeable arguments in the stairwell.

The question is whether it even makes sense with so little equity? Have you ever been to the bank?

We have cautiously inquired but haven’t had a proper consultation yet. My numbers are actually relatively good (2017, just under 100k profit). However, there were many other expenses and our dear tax office, which takes a big chunk. In addition, I simply need reserves for self-employment, for which I will not use for a house construction/house financing. So, in short: the bank was not opposed.

What remains of the profit after taxes and after the formation of the required reserves?

Good figures for 10 years led to 10T€ equity capital, so 1000€ per year savings rate. What do you want to change in the next few years so that the annual savings rate increases by a factor of twenty?