Assessment/Questions about buying a house

I say, a beginning - an end..

How is that to be understood?

That was not a common size even around 1900 - could the semi-detached house ;-) possibly not be half of a semi-detached house designed as such, but half of a divided single house?

Houses of this size did exist at that time, but as far as I know only in the form of workers' settlements, where each building contained two apartments that – in a more comfortable size one could call them maisonette apartments – had the bedrooms arranged above the living kitchen. Without historic preservation status they are rare. And in my assessment they are far from being sought after on the market, but there may be local exceptions.

Honestly, no idea. From the outside it looks like a semi-detached house, own basement, ground floor, upper floor. You cannot compare it to a proper semi-detached house, but at least you can compare it to a better apartment and for tourists for a week it is completely sufficient.

A beginning means an end, otherwise you keep dragging a project in front of you forever, it never really gets finished and eventually it can be annoying. And unfortunately you have all the trades that make a lot of mess and are only done when there is nothing in the house anyway. If you really want to finish it only for a holiday apartment, you should consider that it is not allowed everywhere. But then you can possibly save money. On the electrical work, on the bathrooms, etc. It doesn't have to be the best of everything. But if you yourself are interested again, sockets etc. may be missing. I would now go in with the appraiser. Just get back to me here and we can calmly discuss the matters, point by point.

Understood.

Our idea is that one moves into the new house and still uses the basement of the old house, since the heating is still there. The ground floor + upper floor of the semi-detached house is to be converted into a holiday apartment or for guests. That means Ikea standard is completely sufficient.

We are still waiting for documents, seeing what his pain threshold is, and if we can agree, we will go through it again with an appraiser.

Sounds reasonable. Report back then!

How is that to be understood?

When building or renovating, it always costs nerves. The trauma of noise and dirt and the improvisations involved in various related matters make one hardly eager to undertake such adventures multiple times.