Assessment of financing condominium in Düsseldorf - Thank you!

Jtm80 hit the nail on the head... the calculated term should, without actually calculating, be over 50 years. Assuming an age of about 27 years, it extends well into retirement. On top of that, there is an enormous remaining debt after 10 years (hardly any repayment) and at least 5 wasted years between the 10th and 15th year. Of course, you could then partially repay with saved money. But you seriously can't offer something like that to anyone.

And regarding the interest rate, I still maintain that for 15 years it has to be well below 2%. Otherwise, just leave it, it's too expensive.

In my opinion, the annuity should be around 5% p.a.

What rate could you imagine? Keep in mind that with a condominium, in addition to ancillary costs, you also have to pay monthly fees.

I find the 2nd offer better, BUT only if you can change the 1% repayment to a 3-4% repayment. Otherwise, it’s nonsense. I know the issue with the limitation from acquaintances. They also always have difficulties. One person has now moved into the private sector........ More income, cheaper interest. Crazy

Thank you for the answers. The plan was to save as much as possible monthly with the split offer (plus half Christmas bonus). In the end, we would then put several thousand euros as a special repayment (except maybe in the first year, as furniture and many small items have to be purchased). Would it then be bad if one of the two loans initially has a repayment rate of only 1%, if you make annual payments into it as part of the special repayment? We could change the repayment rate 3 times free of charge. In addition, the second loan (with 5.5% repayment) will be completely paid off after 15 years.

[Hausgeld], [Nebenkosten] and living expenses are of course included in our planning.

This is definitely not what you want to hear - but since I know quite a bit about the university professionally and fancy myself able to somewhat assess your situation:
Don't go ahead with buying real estate at this point in time!

The risk of having to move due to work is way too high. Besides, the offers you are getting are absolutely terrible - precisely because you have to pay a high risk premium due to fixed-term employment contracts.

So what remains: Currently very high purchase prices for real estate, without being able to benefit from the (for others) very favorable conditions. Also the risk of having to sell in a few years - and at least not being able to recover the ancillary purchase costs, in the worst case even selling at a loss.

And as for the interest rate, I maintain that it must be well below 2% for 15 years.

The loan-to-value ratio should be around 90%, it is questionable whether it is above 90%. For that, a well-known website currently outputs > 2% p.a. for a 15-year fixed interest rate.

How much would this apartment or a comparable one cost in rent? Won't you eventually leave the university and start an unlimited contract job in the "real" economy? Or do you (both?) plan an academic career (then relocations would also likely follow)?

Special repayments must also be made, and if you could foresee that for sure, you would include it directly in the fixed repayment rate. Here one should not deceive oneself or sugarcoat anything.

Actually, the loan-to-value ratio is almost 93% (including bathrooms). None of the banks we inquired with wanted to offer us under 2% for 20 years fixed interest. We have family ties in Düsseldorf (and will hopefully inherit something from both sides sometime in the not too distant future). Professionally, it is possible to commute to many cities from Düsseldorf. Our contracts are always extended so far, so we don’t see any risk there for now. We are both flexible and have work experience in companies (communications sector, where you often only earn more if you work almost twice as many hours). We live frugally and therefore always save diligently (we were able to accumulate our equity in recent years without outside help despite having little money per month).

Rents in Düsseldorf are very high; a comparable apartment would certainly cost us 850-950 euros without additional costs.

If we set the repayment rate high right away, it might be a bit tight in the first year—therefore, we would prefer to first see what additional expenses we have at the beginning. The rate can be increased free of charge in the 2nd or 3rd year—and until then, saved amounts could be paid as special repayments.