Buying a house without equity at a relatively young age

In university towns, it is more common for parents to buy the entire shared apartment. For wealthy families, then without roommates.

Since equity = 0 was mentioned and parents are allowed to gift their child 400,000 EUR tax-free every 10 years, one can probably assume that the parents either have nothing or are not willing to leave it to the children for a house financing with 0 equity ;)

In certain circles it may be normal to buy an apartment for the offspring at the start of their studies... in my little universe the parents contributed a bit to the living expenses, if they could. Often that was not the case, many had to work alongside their studies from semester 1. Worlds can be so different...

Since zero equity was mentioned and parents are allowed to give their child 400,000 EUR tax-free every 10 years, one can probably assume that the parents either have nothing or are not willing to leave it to the children for a home financing with zero equity ;)

I wouldn’t give my children 400,000 either, not even one tenth of that, but buy a house and rent it to them. For me, that is a big difference. In your mid-40s, you can easily finance a house and that is a perfectly normal investment with leverage of borrowed capital. Better than leaving the money in a savings account.

In certain circles it may be normal to buy an apartment for the offspring at the start of their studies... in my small universe, the parents contributed a bit to living expenses, if they could. Often that was not the case, many had to work alongside studies from semester 1. Worlds can be so different...

then your universe does not correspond to the legal situation. Parents have to pay, or there is BAFÖG! If that is not enough or if it’s Munich or if one has to work alongside, then the expenses are too high

but buy a house and rent it to them.

In your mid-40s you can easily get a house financed and that is a completely normal investment with leverage.

Better than leaving the money in the savings account

What world do you live in? If I wanted to pay for a house for my children or an investment for renting, we would have to earn twice as much cash as we have now, as we ourselves are working off the mortgage of our own house (not in our mid-40s, but in our mid-50s) with the concern of retirement provision. If well-off parents were in the position to invest, this post and question from the OP probably wouldn’t even exist.

Buying a house and renting it out makes little sense with the increased interest rates. Let's assume an investment of 500,000 (i.e. purchase price, incidental costs, and minor cosmetic repairs), then the interest cost alone would be 20,000 (at 4%) without any maintenance reserve. For this to be cash flow neutral, the cold rent would have to be easily 2,000 euros. The OP would also have to pay that with a purchase (plus repayment). But here he is willing to pay an irrational lover’s price to "own" property.

A financed real estate investment currently only makes sense if you expect future price increases. If you only look at the ongoing yield, you are committing pure stupidity. At least the owner-occupier has the consumption of a large living area. And the speculation on price increases can only be realized by the OP if he buys himself. Otherwise, he would at best get this yield as the sole heir, but even then his wife would have nothing from it.

At 2,000 euros (or even more in the case of renovation backlog) cold rent, the OP would probably quickly give up on the house and prefer an age-appropriate 2-3-room apartment.