Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

My neighbor ordered his garden shed the other day

In 03/2020 he had saved an obi ad because he already knew back then which shed it was supposed to be

It cost 799€ back then
Is supposed to cost 3499€ now
Means the same and same article number

Surely it's an outlier I think but really extreme how much difference that makes, he actually ordered a different one now haha :D

Our washbasin (Artis from Villeroy & Boch) cost exactly €239 for the first house in 2020, when I started putting the bathrooms together for this house it was already €299, now it is €359. Same shop, same item, same version. o_O

Now I looked it up because I was interested.

Public service, TV-L E10, level 1
2013
2728.71

2022
3523.62
+30.5%

IG Metall tariff for NRW Pay group EG 10 at 100%
2013 2,964.00
2023 3,603.00
+21%

So much for your "easily 40 percent". Since tax tables rarely keep pace with inflation, you can assume that net income nominally has only grown by about 25% or 15%. And these are collectively agreed wages, with a union behind them!

A lot of the IG Metall increase came through special payments that are not included in the table wages. IG Metall members are already the top earners among employees in Germany anyway.

As someone else wrote here, I also think that high earners who could afford a house are smart enough to use some kind of inflation compensation. Ergo, job changes or wage demands.

Otherwise, they would be dead broke today if they had 40 percent higher expenses than back then without salary increases and wouldn't even be able to afford the payments from back then. That somehow doesn't make sense to me.

Financings over 10 years with only 1% repayment are likely to be primarily investment properties that will be passed on anyway after the speculation period ends.

Financing over 10 years with only 1% repayment is likely to be primarily investment properties that are handed over again anyway after the speculation period ends

That's what I thought too. It was also noted that the mentioned interest rates were actually top conditions back in 2013/14 (so nothing like 100% financing or similar), meaning that presumably solid equity and other collateral were available. To me, that doesn't sound like "someone who could just barely afford it" but rather "someone who optimized it." So either it was rented out anyway and that’s why they wanted minimal repayment, or even if it's the owner-occupied home, a "we’ll do the 1% repayment and invest the rest of our money profitably" or something similar.

Financings over 10 years with only 1% repayment are probably mainly investment properties that will be passed on anyway after the speculation period ends

Good point. Even if in the end it doesn't make much difference whether someone sells because they can no longer afford the follow-up financing or because it was planned from the start. Anyone who has been at least somewhat sensible has already secured the cheap follow-up financing via forward contracts in recent years.