Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

What other reason is there besides house sale? Utilization of the property is otherwise not possible, but that is a tightrope walk.

It is not an ordinary termination, but always an extraordinary termination. Legitimate reasons for this cannot be exhaustively listed. I will quote from my own contract:

The borrower may terminate the loan agreement secured by real estate lien extraordinarily with a notice period of 3 months if his legitimate interests justify this, but at the earliest 6 months after full receipt of the loan. A legitimate interest is in particular the borrower's need for alternative utilization of the pledged property. [...]

One paragraph later ...

If there is an important reason (§§ 490 Abs. 3, 314 Building Code), the borrower is furthermore entitled to terminate the contract extraordinarily without notice period and repay the loan early to the lender without paying a prepayment penalty.

The mines are probably long flooded. Nothing is being reactivated quickly at all. And if we want a future for our children, we should get out of fossil stuff as quickly as possible.

There is enough coal in the world; it doesn't necessarily have to come from Russia. Reactivation here is nonsense and would set us back decades. And as you say, it's not even possible. Gas is just annoying; it either comes "regionally" through a pipeline or liquefied by ship, and for the latter, the infrastructure is lacking, and even if we had it, only a fraction of the industry's energy demand could be covered.

And if we want a future for our children, we should get out of the fossil stuff as quickly as possible.

Should. The only question is whether we can. We are still an industrial country here. For now. That pays, among other things, our healthcare system, the social system, the education system, etc. If you consider something CO2-free like Cambodia, Kenya, India, or Somalia desirable for your children, then it can’t go fast enough, I understand... but then don’t complain about the previous advantages that will increasingly disappear. Speaking of India, I’ve heard that soon a ship will dock in Rostock that has loaded coal from Australia. The coal was actually supposed to be delivered to India but was rerouted to Rostock because of better prices and because it’s not from Russia. So far, Rostock has received coal for its power plants from Russia via St. Petersburg. And so that the ship doesn’t have to make an empty trip halfway around the globe—just so we can proudly beat our chest about our stance towards Russia—it now goes to St. Petersburg, picks up the coal cargo, and delivers it to India in return. :cool: That really showed Putin what’s what! Paying more coal for the coal and sending a ship over 20,000 km unnecessarily are just minor collateral damages...

That makes no sense. They are paying 4% now with your expectation of 4-6% in the long term. But they are destroying the repayment, with 30 years the repayment will easily drop by a third with the small percentage increase. With the 10-year one, they could probably refinance at 6% without making a loss. What is the initial repayment of the financing? And the idea of taking a long term and then hoping for lower interest rates in 10 years... that is simply wasting money, especially when coming from a low-interest phase.

No, they/we do not hope for lower interest rates in 10 years but rather assume that they will probably rise further. If, contrary to expectations, they should fall again, refinancing can be done after 10 years. With an interest rate lock for the entire term, the psychological factor also plays a role: you know what rate to expect and buy security. Of course, that also has a price. Buying a self-used property is not primarily an investment aimed at optimizing returns. Most make an emotional purchase that should also feel "secure" over the term. And an uncertainty about what might await me (also negatively) in 10 years does not contribute to a feeling of security.

This morning, there was a live broadcast with audience participation on Deutschlandfunk, as every day.

Listener opinions.

I no longer eat meat to protect the climate, the next person has turned off their heating since the beginning of the war and only showers with cold water, another demands a speed limit, another demands insulation of houses and replacing light bulbs. And of course the classic: even more wind turbines and photovoltaic systems.

Main message: Putin receives no more money. We are basically bankrupting Putin through saving.

So we have to decide. Either we wreck our entire energy-intensive economy. We destroy our infrastructure, create masses of poor and unemployed people. Neglect and civil war.

There are no additional capacities to compensate for Russian hard coal. Everything else is deception.

PCK Schwedt and Leuna refinery. They operate with Russian oil. An oil embargo would shut down both sites. A conversion is not possible. The facilities are designed for Russian oil and not for WTI or oil from the North Sea.

We have now imposed an embargo on Russian coal. We will now do the same on oil and gas and then the German industry will come to a standstill.

In the past, the Greens said "peace through disarmament." Today, the arms deliveries to Ukraine cannot be large enough. What hypocrites! Times just change like that.

Not at all. In Japan, this low interest rate phase has been completely normal for more than 20 years. Nothing is rising there.
So why should one automatically assume that it can only last 2-3 years here?

This is turning into a fundamental discussion. The FED is raising interest rates and the ECB will follow. We currently have 7% inflation and crises in the commodity markets (not only since the current war in Ukraine). Interest rates have risen sharply since the end of January and will continue to rise. Japan has had deflation for 20 years, but it is not really comparable to the last 2 years in the Eurozone.
Be that as it may. In recent years, we have advised and sold fixed interest rates over the entire term and will continue to do so in the future. Our customers are glad that they took out fixed interest rates of 1,x% over 20/30 years during the low interest rate period and did not sacrifice a 0.5% interest benefit for 10 years. With 3-7% inflation, they can relax for the next years until their loans are repaid.