Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

I always find it interesting that the prices on the portals are referenced. At least in my area, the properties found there are the ones that don't get sold under the table. There's usually a reason for that!

Since we are currently in the situation of wanting to sell our house, we will probably go through the real estate portals. "Under the table," many seekers quickly become very alert. They might think they can get a bargain. Why should a seller, without asking other interested parties, sell to the first bidder below market value? I believe "under the table" is rarely cheaper than through the real estate portals. For example, if someone from our extended social circle inquires, we have a price expectation for the house (based on bank and broker assessments). If we get that, I gladly forgo the route through the portals, but not below my price expectation. It is true that the prices sometimes listed on the portals (also with brokers) are sky-high. They then remain posted for months as price examples, and some uninformed people assume that these are achievable values. Brokers are another matter. €40k+ for a €500-600k house. At an hourly rate of €100 (and there are no training or other regulations), you would have to work 400 billable hours. ... There may be houses that sit like lead on the shelves where this happens. But from what I see, I would not expect more than 100 hours per house, and that is already a high estimate.

That does not improve anything, is a very simplistic view and pure election campaign rhetoric (e.g., from Mr. Heil). Exactly the hiring of civil servants has already been examined by numerous economists, and the models regularly led to it becoming more expensive for everyone:

"Scientists," especially in the area of forecasts and possible scenarios and models, demonstrate a lot. Everything is very much "would have / could / should" with assumptions X, Y, Z. There are plenty of other "scientists" who come to different conclusions. Aside from the idea of a unified pension insurance, it should be said that the costs for distribution and administration in private pension insurance consume about 20% of the amount invested. In the statutory pension, it is at least 1.3%. But it is inefficient and expensive, and unfortunately a private corporation cannot make money from it because it all benefits the insured. That is why Georg, Maschi, Riester, and co. devised back then that private provision would be subsidized with tax funds so that, in the end, the insured would receive at least slightly less than with the statutory system, while at the same time 20% commission remains.

Include civil servants as well - align pensions with the retirement level. A big step towards improvement.

How does this lead to more money in the pension funds? Civil servants who pay into the pension funds then want,
completely incomprehensibly, to have a pension as well.

Oh... a friend of generalities and platitudes :rolleyes: Well... what can you argue against the private experiences of a single person? *Irony off*
If that were generally the case, the number of applicants would be skyrocketing. One would have to advise their children to become civil servants, since you earn so well by sleeping and get a fat pension. And if you go to the tax office, you don't even pay taxes... :p I'm laughing so hard right now :mad:

Haha yes I would advise my children and no not only my experience but if you can't read well and don't have a counterargument you can try it with insinuations ;)

Oh yes, of course excluding fire brigade, police etc.

Include civil servants - align pensions with the retirement level. A big step towards improvement.

The problem exists even without civil servants, as the pension fund already requires a large subsidy. And civil servants don’t necessarily have a better age structure either, most of them are close to retirement. The pension claims of civil servants are also a hidden debt mountain for the future. The problem is demographic in nature and cannot be solved by shifting people from one pot to another.

There is still a lot of water flowing down the creek

There is already the EU directive to renovate x% of the worst properties each year.

Include civil servants - align pensions with the retirement level. A big step towards improvement.

As already writes, the higher pensions are probably one of the main reasons why anyone still chooses this career path at all. So many aspects of daily work are simply no longer up to date and lead to frustration. Flexibility like a crowbar.
Pay is often significantly worse than in the private sector, if there are comparable roles. Where the pay is good, like with teachers, nobody wants the job anyway because the framework conditions are increasingly deteriorating.
If interest rates are low, tariff increases are argued against by citing low inflation. If inflation rises, there is no room for maneuver due to tight budgets. It is bad enough that the Federal Constitutional Court has already had to reprimand the legislature several times because the pay system is being manipulated to exhaustion.
No, I do not work in the public sector. But as soon as it comes to pension and health insurance issues, it is pretended that civil servants are draining the funds or that their (significantly lower gross) earnings would quickly fix the budget situation. This only serves to distract from other absolutely structural problems.

Civil servants have a completely different legal status, so you can't really compare them (content-wise). Financially, of course, you can.
Self-employed people are a different matter, both regarding health insurance and pension insurance. However, I see no way to implement that fairly (for pensions).

From my point of view, the only possibility is to dissolve the intergenerational contract. After that, a mandatory private pension with a government-guaranteed minimum benefit and optional top-up.
The state just has to pay full benefits for one generation, which it will only do once most of the baby boomers have mostly passed away. So in 30-40 years. The foundation has already been laid with a shrinking pension share and longer compulsory working hours.

And it goes against me to write this because I am actually rather left-wing. But from a very high-level perspective, it is not really social for the state to fully ensure that people not only live reasonably well in old age but also comfortably and decently.
It should guarantee a kind of basic foundation and maybe ensure that you don’t completely lose what you have invested in retirement provisions (up to a certain extent). But everything beyond that I actually see as a private matter or personal responsibility.