Apartment or house purchase in 2-3 years, under what conditions?

  • Erstellt am 2023-05-08 19:48:44

TraumhausAufRa

2023-05-08 19:48:44
  • #1
Hello everyone,

I have been a silent reader of this forum for several years now, especially in the financing thread. Since my partner and I are now starting to plan our own apartment or house purchase in a somewhat more concrete way, I would like to start my own topic. What I want to say beforehand: we do not have a fixed plan yet and currently want to find out what would be possible under which conditions. So how can we prepare ourselves in the best possible way, what is realistic, and which dreams should we best say goodbye to now. Thanks already for constructive feedback!

General information about you:

    [*]How old are you? F 26, M 26, not married yet
    [*]Are there children? No
    [*]Are children planned? Currently not planned, but I would not completely rule out that I could change this in 5-10 years, definitely not before then
    [*]What do you do for a living? Both in the software industry
    [*]Are you employed, self-employed, retired, housewife, househusband, etc...? Both employed
    [*]How many hours do you work? Both 40h

Income and asset situation:

    [*]What income do you have (net)? F 3200, M 2900, additional annual bonuses F 3000-8000, M 3000-6000 (variable, the 3k each are fixed though)
    [*]How much child benefit do you get? -
    [*]Further transfer payments such as parental allowance, sick pay, etc...? -
    [*]How much equity do you have? Currently 35k, expected 85k in 2-3 years; since the question will definitely come: no more equity is available yet, as we both have only been working for 3 and 1 year respectively, and not with such a high income from the start. Additionally, a student loan of 25k has already been paid off during this time.
    [*]How much of the equity do you want to invest in the house project? At least the incidental purchase costs, so about 50k? (depends on the specific project)

Expense situation:
Expenses already included in other items can of course be omitted. This list is not exhaustive and can be expanded or summarized as desired. Please note to indicate all costs monthly, even if they occur only annually!

Housing costs:

    [*]Current cold rent, 1400
    [*]Current warm rent, 1800
    [*]Electricity, 100
    [*]Gas, included in additional costs
    [*]Water, sewage, garbage fees, street cleaning, included in additional costs
    [*]Telephone, internet, mobile, 60
    [*]Total: 1960 -> round up to 2000

Mobility costs:

    [*]Monthly ticket for bus and train (also for the kids!) 50
    [*]Company car, 200 net deduction
    [*]Electricity, 100
    [*]Parking, 10
    [*]Total: 360 -> round up to 400

Insurance costs:

    [*]Private health insurance (also supplementary health insurance, daily sickness allowance, etc.) -
    [*]Liability insurance (also pets), 5
    [*]Capital or risk life insurance -
    [*]Pension insurance (also Riester, Rürup, etc.), 300
    [*]Disability insurance, 30
    [*]Accident insurance -
    [*]Household insurance -
    [*]Legal protection insurance - 30
    [*]Other insurance (such as travel insurance, funeral costs insurance) -
    [*]Total: 365 -> round up to 400

Living expenses:

    [*]Groceries - 500
    [*]Restaurant costs - 100
    [*]Care/drugstore - 30
    [*]Pets (food, vet, medication, stable costs) -
    [*]Medication - 20
    [*]Clothing - 200
    [*]Furniture / own purchases - 150
    [*]Club fees/gym - 300
    [*]Leisure - 100
    [*]Total: 1400

Savings contributions:

    [*]Vacation - 400
    [*]House - 500, partly in ETFs, partly on checking account
    [*]Retirement provision / wealth accumulation - 1000, in addition to the 300 above, currently completely in ETFs
    [*]Total: 1900


Other expenses:

    [*]Household account has been kept very detailed for 3 years, so all values come from it. For safety, everything is rounded somewhat.
    [*]There is another apartment purchased for rental, but it completely pays for itself and will continue to be used for wealth building.

Total income and expenses:

    [*]Total income, 6100 + bonuses (converted to monthly 500-1150, but intended as a buffer)
    [*]Total expenses, 4200
    [*]Balance, 1900 (all savings contributions)
    [*]Of which total cold rent and dispensable savings (e.g., savings rate for the house), 3300 new balance including cold rent


General information about the property & financing:

Now we come to the actually exciting part. We are currently in the phase where we want to understand what is possible for us and when. Basically, we do not have the claim that our first property has to be our "forever" property. We can very well imagine starting now with an apartment with compromises, and possibly moving in 5-10 years into a house or apartment that meets significantly more or all of our wishes. Especially since we both regularly receive raises and surely one or the other job change will yet come, where we expect further salary jumps.
If we currently search for properties on Immoscout, etc., apartments we can imagine in the next few years, albeit with compromises (be it location, size, condition, etc.), cost around 400-500k. Apartments that we already like very much are around 600-700k, and if you really go into every last detail, we are more in the range of 900k-1.5 million.
Since we naturally want to stay realistic, we would preferably stay under 500k in 2-4 years, or up to 600k if it is really a great property. But with current 3-4% interest rates and the wish to keep the monthly payment under 2-2.5k, this becomes pretty challenging to almost impossible. Since, as said, it does not necessarily have to be the "forever" property, we do not have the strict goal to have the loan fully repaid by retirement (so a repayment rate of 1% would also be conceivable for us, whether the bank agrees is another matter). The wish to keep the monthly payment under 2-2.5k is primarily due to the desire for flexibility. So whether it is a job change with a few months’ pause in between, the possibility of self-employment, the possibility to reduce to less than 40 hours, enough money for private retirement provision, etc.

We know that we generally live very comfortably and appreciate that very much. Living somewhat more frugally would definitely be possible, but we do not want to restrict ourselves too much for a property. Especially vacation and spontaneous freedoms (eating out, sports/club, leisure, etc.) give us a lot of quality of life that we do not want to give up.

But now my actual questions are: which of the scenarios do you consider realistic? And how can we best prepare for this in the current situation? Currently, we save our equity mostly in ETFs and only partially in the checking account. Which is generally not recommended when the period in which the money will be needed could be so soon (when we can actually realize this project is still up in the air). But since the topic only recently became so concrete, the very concrete preparation also only starts now. Before that, it was more about general wealth accumulation, which we would also like to continue in ETFs alongside the property financing.
 

kati1337

2023-05-08 20:35:44
  • #2
In general, you have very solid ideas and it is clear that you have already dealt with numbers a bit. The insight "the first property does not have to be the last" is already worth a lot. The income is good, the interest rates are currently just difficult because prices have not fallen proportionally. No one has a crystal ball, but personally I see it rather pessimistically at the moment. As long as building does not become significantly cheaper, existing properties will not become cheaper either. The economy has been better, energy is expensive, and I see little room for improvement before the end of the war. Further interest rate hikes have already been hinted at; at least experts seem to consider that more likely than the opposite. I have already read on Tagesschau that 5% mortgage interest rates are expected over the course of 2023. But now half of it is already over, and there is still no sign of it.

But all of this is speculation – which means there is little that can be done to help you in the forum.
What made the project become "more concrete" for you currently? Do you have something in prospect?
If you really have a timeframe/know one, I would possibly transfer the capital for the house from ETFs to a daily allowance account if the market is doing well at the moment.

You surely still have potential regarding your salary. We are both in IT as well, and I don’t see our industry declining anytime soon, rather the opposite. I wouldn’t want to restrict the standard of living for the property too much. Maybe for the first few years, because you really have many expenses when building. But for a while, the joy of the new house can also console you for a missed vacation. In the medium term, however, I would plan the financing so that you can still live happily with it. We were lucky that we fixed everything at the beginning of 2022. We were in the middle of the rising interest rate spiral but still caught a time in the middle. Therefore, our rate is well below 2k. That would have been our pain threshold; above that we would have felt uncomfortable.
I would rather not do a 1% repayment. You pay almost only interest but won’t reduce the loan enough.

But keep in mind, if you now buy an affordable property where you make compromises, with the plan to sell it again in a few years and acquire a better property: If the conditions for buying are better later, then the conditions for selling your first property will be worse. You also buy a currently affordable property at the current price level. If prices or interest rates go down, then you may no longer get what you once paid for the first property, or at least not make a big profit. Nevertheless, with some solid repayment you should have built up equity, which I think is better than renting. ;)
 

Grundaus

2023-05-09 09:29:47
  • #3
Regarding the expenses: she has a company car including taxation and you have to pay for the electricity yourself? Regarding the 300.-€ pension insurance. At that age, you don't need pension insurance. Interest rates are currently over 4% for 100% financing. If you extrapolate from the rent, that means a property value of over 500,000.-- The rented apartment must be included in the overall consideration, everything else is mental accounting.
 

fm-united

2023-05-09 19:47:53
  • #4
Have you ever thought about buying your first property not for personal use, but for capital building? This should not be underestimated from a tax perspective. And if you want to buy a larger home in, for example, 10 years, you can sell the apartment again and record the gain (which is of course not guaranteed) as equity.

You can write off the currently high interest costs when renting out, and the rental market is currently on the rise. I would consider a good location, ideally new construction or new construction quality, and not too large (1-2 rooms).

Has this thought ever occurred to you?
 

kbt09

2023-05-09 20:05:06
  • #5
It seems the OP is already doing that ;)
 

fm-united

2023-05-09 21:39:24
  • #6


sorry, I had overlooked that. Then it's all good
 

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