Georgian2019
2022-04-21 18:24:40
- #1
It’s always a question of priorities, as Kati already wrote above. We currently spend more than 30 percent of our household income on housing and still don’t feel like we have to restrict ourselves. We also once lived in an area where we only spent 15 percent, and in my hometown we could even live for free. Still, we now live again where it’s most expensive. Money isn’t everything in life, after all. But of course, everyone has to find out/decide for themselves what is more important to them.
I used to travel a lot, usually two long-distance trips a year and various city trips or visits to relatives abroad in between. Back then, housing wasn’t that important to me. Now with children, you spend most of your time in your hometown or within a 50 km radius. That’s why for us, we decided to spend more money and live exactly where we like it best. But as I said, everyone has different priorities.
Regarding the price increases, I just hope that the situation will ease a bit over the next year. There’s no point in getting worked up or even putting your project on hold now. If you managed to secure a super low interest rate and/or have already built, it’s obviously easy to say. And yes, of course it’s great if you only spend 25 percent of your household income on housing. But if you still want to build nowadays, because the rental market in some areas is also very tight, then you just have to bite the bullet. Hoping for better times while inflation eats away at equity and space in the apartment gets scarcer isn’t fun either. And moving back to a cheaper area is, as I said, not an option for us. Better to grill on the terrace than go to a restaurant twice a week.
As I said: it was meant as an alternative or a food for thought. My sister lived many years in Hamburg Uhlenhorst by the Alster (one-room apartment), then moved to a cheaper and bigger apartment in the outskirts of Hamburg but was not happy there because she missed the hustle and bustle and the fancy scene of the city center. They then searched for over two years for a decent apartment in an in-district in Hamburg and gladly took a twice as expensive apartment on the 5th floor with what felt like 4.3 inches of paint on the textured wallpaper and pitch pine flooring in Winterhude. They now have water crates delivered because the 5th floor also has its downsides. Two well-paid jobs and groceries from the market with the Winterhude apartment still lead to no savings... but mom and dad help out occasionally... and eventually a substantial inheritance will come, which will be squandered because owning property in Hamburg still won’t be possible without tightening the belt, and in the end no wealth or savings will have been built up. The 5th floor in old age will also be nonsense, so only a more expensive apartment on the main floor will help.