Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

In the man's family, there is a really great sense of togetherness. The grandparents (~ 90) have 3 children who are local residents and have built/lived there, with a total of now around 20 grandchildren who are all about 30 years old. Some have already built there or are renting – all within a radius of one kilometer in the same village. When wood needs to be chopped for the grandparents, a dozen young people immediately pitch in for half a day, someone brings a pot of soup and someone else two crates of beer – job done. Completely natural... I am always more than speechless – something like this is hardly imaginable nowadays. If it weren’t completely in the middle of nowhere, I would want to build there too :)

Spiegel online just has a small article about excessive price increases at the moment. It's not very content-rich, but the construction industry was also mentioned.

"According to this, many companies have raised their prices significantly more in the following industries than would have been expected based solely on the increased costs for intermediate goods: agriculture and forestry including fishing, construction industry, trade, hospitality industry, transport."

I would have liked to see the underlying statistics (aka what does "many" mean, what does "significantly more" mean) but I don't have time to google right now... maybe someone else finds more.

you forgot category 3, guys like you ;)

I know them too, for decades they have been using their contacts "in the forest" or at the municipality. When something is cut down somewhere, they usually go there directly in the evening and saw with Stihl and transport it away. Stored in front of the door until grandpas, uncles, sons and whoever else warm up while chopping wood. (just for the sake of completeness: so far no woman has been seen chopping wood with us). Occasionally, if it’s really cheap, a few RM are also dumped in front of the door for around 50€.

Oh, I suspected that, but then let’s also correct the half-knowledge.
Well, contacts, you just have them if you’ve been doing this for a very long time, people know each other, they help each other, that’s just how it is in a village with more cows than inhabitants. Sure, something always comes up somewhere through clearing, firebreaks, etc. The power lies in patience, no one rushes there, why should they, no one else is taking it away from us. The nice thing is that we already know beforehand where it will come up and the harvester driver places it accordingly by the path.
The time of bark beetle wood was bad. Believe me, you don’t want that stress, we were almost overwhelmed with that stuff and then the question where to put it, oh dear, the stacks got high.
Splitting is done in the forest, otherwise it would be way too messy in front of the house if you process around 100RM.
Women take part too, but full agreement, they usually have no interest in splitting. Here the youngest girls drive the biggest tractors.

Just something on the topic, just came across 2 extremes. Everything is freely available online, just search for the headline.

-> Focus Online "The downfall of the German real estate market is self-inflicted"
The diagrams are very interesting and prove the increased prices. Was a bit surprised about the few heat pumps.
-> Heise Online "Saudi Arabia: How the mega-city project 'The Line' is progressing"
It's crazy, construction costs don't seem to matter much there. The earthworks are totally insane. I wonder if they will later also have problems with material availability?

Was a bit surprised about the few heat pumps.

Not surprised. When we started with the topic of house construction about 2 years ago, the heat pump was still rather a premium extra. In the franchise chains, gas was dominant, and among the prefabricated builders, air heating was dominant in my impression. And a golden nose was made from the surcharges for heat pumps. You have to look at the ratios. Nationwide in Germany, we're talking about approximately 40 million housing units, and the target of 400,000 housing units (1%) is almost unattainable. And a large part of the units comes from large buildings. If, as infill development, a complex with 20-30 apartments is squeezed in somewhere, then gas is simply much more practical. Accordingly, almost no one planned with heat pumps there. And in the existing stock, the heating replacement was rather oil to gas than X to heat pump. Arguments like heating demand and flow temperature are well known. When you then look at the age of the buildings (about 2/3 before 1980), it becomes clear that nothing can be simply exchanged there, but real money would have to be invested. And Saudi Arabia is a different league. When money does not matter, you always get the material.

The governing coalition of SPD, Greens, and FDP has agreed on relief measures for consumers with oil, pellet, and liquid gas heating systems. Specifically, there will be retrospective relief of up to 2,000 euros for the period from January 1 to December 1, 2022, for households heating with "nicht leitungsgebundenen Brennstoffen."

Quelle: stock3