Coalition Agreement 2025, New Building Funding

Rarely has the view into the future been as blurry as it is at the moment...

A saying from today's always negative thought loop, as if today were by far the worst ever.....oh dear... I myself, and surely not alone, have repeatedly imagined a future that turned out to be 100% different each time. So the "normality" is not that the future is predictable; therefore, it is no more or less "clear" today, only the personal perception changes in some people. I always find it funny when people believe that in other times, they spent the whole day effortlessly just sitting by the honey pot. This way of thinking is a well-known trick of our brain to make its own, self-responsible "suffering" easier to bear and to always shift the responsibility for one's own condition onto the "others." Personal future is per se "blurry," fortunately, as I think; that alone does not scare me.

As builders, even with seemingly small projects, we do not operate in the realm of "self-evident things," but that of luxury.

Exactly so, and I enjoy that without losing sight of other things.

Luxury? That should be self-evident for large parts of society, even if the left-green ideology wants us to believe otherwise.

....and in which article of the Basic Law or anywhere else is THAT written down, i.e., a self-evidence of owning a home? Although I am neither left-green nor right-black-blue or yellow-gold, I myself have never had such an expectation. Where should I even have the entitlement to it, and who should be obligated to provide it? And above all, WHO would then say who belongs to these "large parts of society" and who ends up empty-handed?

A bit cheap, don't you think? This is the top earners' forum, which can already be seen by the contributions often thrown around here for building a house... and even then it usually says, also from you, "Phew... 3,000 EUR/m², that's going to be tight..." Ridiculous that you, of all people, are now accusing others of pessimism.

If you want to close your eyes to the current threat situation, fine. But that doesn't make it disappear.

By the way, I just said that a house has never been as affordable as it is today. You probably overlooked that because it doesn't fit into your monologue of accusing me of gloomy thoughts...

I built a house for 2,300 EUR/m². So it’s possible... others can do it too, probably even cheaper if you know craftsmen and aren't already 42 and out of shape from office work, like me ;)

The affordability index for property ownership was 39.8 in 2024, after a low around 30 between 2012 and 2020. In 1980, this value was still at 100.

That is true and seems strange at first glance.
Unfortunately, no links are allowed. The commentary by Prof. Dr. Michel Voigtländer on the IW Cologne website is very enlightening. It explains why, despite a relatively low affordability index, the owner-occupier rate does not increase.
Your expression of the "blur of the future" fits perfectly here. In the early 80s, interest rates were just below 10%, which significantly influenced the height of the index; inflation and expectations of rising wages caused people to accept an initially high burden, because the general mood was optimistic. Unfortunately, this is lost in what you call the "blur."

This "blur" is partly self-made and arises when too many demands are placed on the community while too little is contributed back to the community.

If someone wants to close their eyes to the current threat situation, fine. But that does not make it disappear.

That is true. In the 80s, there was a mood of détente as a result of the CSCE Helsinki Final Act, disarmament agreements, and later Russia’s wild opening. The threat situation was not gone, but we closed our eyes and made our decisions differently (well, in the 80s I was still a teenager).

"Phew... 3,000 EUR/m², that’s going to be tight..."
Ridiculous that you, of all people, now accuse others of scaremongering.

Why shouldn’t one address a problem just because they do not have it themselves?

If you look at these construction costs from the point of view of affordable housing, it really becomes a problem. In our community, they do not see themselves able to develop a new residential area with apartment buildings and small units that would have a rent below 16€ cold per sqm. Here it is—owner-occupier index notwithstanding—extremely tight for young people and those with low incomes.