The situation is very interesting for us (commuter belt of a big city) but the purchase price blows your socks off, (from memory):
Michaelshoven is not directly on the Rhine, but apparently the district has a lot of greenery to offer. The settlement of the area is so wonderfully sparse and green that if you make an effort, you can find the house on aerial images. If you want a more predestined location, then the price is justified. The price makes the location, location, location of the property! Plus the stamp of the architect bungalow, which certainly has its exclusive charm and well-maintained values inside. Energetically, you can certainly gain a lot if you simply insulate the roof first. Two people from Cologne with good income, realistic attitude, good vision, and skills will find their appealing home here for a million!
Surely it does not meet even remotely the needs of a family father, who also does not care about design and zeitgeist, nevertheless: if I were from Cologne and had your salary, something like this would actually be mine!
I rather have the impression that some sellers (and agents) also orient themselves towards the possibly fairly priced objects with "inferior" offers. Hypothetical example to keep it short: A renovated house is listed for 800k in a quiet dead-end street in the neighborhood, and then they just put the renovation-required property on the busy street for 790k. The one object is gone after a short time and the other stays eternally on the portal.
So what? That’s the market! This also happens in every department store, supermarket, and boutique: put the slow mover next to the bestseller - eventually, both are sold. Also the topic of price: if something is offered too cheaply, it will be scrutinized more critically because something must be wrong with it or it is seen as junk.
Even at my annual flea market, I can see that label and no-name items do well side by side, thus also advertising each other. And since I don’t want that much competing stuff on the wallpaper table, some things that are not touched so often first go back into the box to be taken out again later. That’s how you sell!
And the real junk, you offer differently anyway, e.g., via an auction.
I think they are still hoping to find a "fool."
If you go into the search with such an attitude and after one or two years still haven’t understood it but instead complain and see yourself as a victim, honestly, it’s your own fault that you don’t find anything:
Whoever constantly compares the portals just by the numbers and sits at the PC with the words "Man, man, man, they are crazy with the prices," will neither recognize the values nor find a house with this approach. Because the spirit is against it.
What about the new end terraced/duplex house in Sürth? As I said, I’m not from Cologne, but Sürth is on the Rhine... the house then 6 minutes by bike from the Rhine bank.
I think you will find something in every property that keeps you from buying it; in the end, the price will always be too expensive for you.
What I find a bit sad, and it was already to be read in the initial post: you don’t even know how much value your salary and savings have. Rarely have I read these numbers as salary. And such salaries are also rare here with us – surely there are such jobs here (Airbus, Hamburg Business,
Daimler), but very few. And these employers are currently also changing by replacing expensive staff with cheaper ones. But those who have good salaries also live very generously in our commuter belt and corresponding to their income because they can afford it.
But somehow good salary is sometimes like pearls before swine: you can do nothing but save for old age and complain now. You basically can’t handle money if you look at it closely. ;)
I also don’t know if you always have to wait until the pain threshold until something happens.
I jokingly searched the real estate portals here in the area. Many of the same old acquaintances from 2.5 years ago are still listed.
I do that regularly, also to keep an eye on the value of my parents’ house. Although there is hardly any vacancy here, many houses are first rented out because and if they are not sold.
And yes, the value of my parents’ house (built 1978) is not determined by the market value but by the other houses in the neighborhood and buying behavior on the market. Surely, my parents’ house has almost double the value in design, quality, size, and plot compared to the bungalow with half the living area and equipment 10 years older, but on the market you will not be able to sell for double.