Construction financing: Do the numbers fit?

To get back from the children to the topic:

For me, the aspect of retirement provision also comes into play.

NO!!!

Building a house is, purely economically considered, anti provision.

I accept all other arguments about space, quality of life, etc. But the retirement argument is nonsense squared.

If you invest the theoretical loan repayment until retirement via a savings plan in something with some return, you will have more (much more) for old age than from the house. Strictly in terms of money.
Instead of building a 180 sqm house with 230k equity, you could probably finance 1 - 2 multi-family houses for rental purposes. Or build up a stock portfolio with the savings rate. Or invest in an ETF. Or mix all of that to minimize concentration risk. That would be retirement provision.

Additionally, both depreciation and ongoing costs (on a 30-year average, including all necessary repairs/renovations!) are chronically underestimated by people who see homeownership as retirement provision. For example, you:

But if we want to continue paying rent in retirement and at the same time still have enough available for the rest of life, we would have to save about 300 euros a month for later. Therefore, I come to the loan rate of around 1,600 to 1,700 euros per month (cold rent plus reserves).

If you build up assets in real values until retirement with the assumed rate, you will easily end up with much more than 300€ per month. And the aforementioned depreciation + repairs + miscellaneous seem to have been ignored by you as well?

I don’t want to be misunderstood: If a house and everything connected with it gives you quality of life, building it is justified. A good life is more than the sum of economically correct decisions.
But please do not justify building it with economic advantages. They simply do not exist.

Purely from the numbers, the financing you have in mind is possible, I see no problems there.

Hello,
my wife (32) and I (36) are planning to build. We have made a first rough calculation and I would like to ask you to take a look at it.

Our current net cold rent is 1,385 euros, we are both civil servants and have a monthly savings rate of about 1,900 euros per month.

So if you now have this savings rate alongside the cold rent, I really don’t understand why you are even asking for opinions here. Especially as civil servants. You could easily repay 2,000 per month.
You would also have repaid the loan well before retirement.

With these conditions, I would definitely have no trouble sleeping. ))

It will definitely work, but I wouldn't know why anyone would want to have children and then spend the whole day at work. Neither the children nor oneself benefit from that.

Best regards
Sabine

Full agreement.

If obviously the money is there to be able to work part-time...

The children are passed on to grandma/grandpa. Then people wonder why the children grow up having more connection to the grandparents than to the parents.

We also have such "free spirits" in our circle of acquaintances. Such phrases come up like "the children are happy" etc. The husband can't connect with the children at all. You hardly see any toys because everything has to be tidy.

Now a one-week cruise is planned, of course again without the children who stay with grandma.

Cheers to society

That helps the OP a lot here.

Two people are not even sure yet if they want children at all. What is clear, however, is how to proceed professionally. Whether at all, and if yes, how to combine it, has not been planned at all.

But nevertheless the purely fictional, not yet existing and possibly never existing life plan is being torn apart because everyone knows how to do it right and that the OP will "definitely" do it "wrong."

Are you all out of your minds?

As if there were no possibilities for both partners to personally raise children early on in civil service jobs with flexible hours and work-from-home options even without classic parental leave!

And anyway, this is not the topic here. The OP can easily finance their dream house but otherwise make every classic thinking mistake (better to go to the bank than a landlord, retirement provision) that you can make.

Important for the participants in the thread would therefore be to find out whether the OP would still want "their" house if these economic false arguments are wiped off the table. Because then there is nothing left speaking against the financing; income and equity allow it.

Instead, there is whining against something that does not even exist yet. Germans are simply all football coaches, chancellors, and model parents.

A toast to the quintessential German thread!

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Specifically to the OP: Would you still want to finance your big house if it is made clear to you that it is an economic losing proposition and by no means an old-age provision, but rather the opposite? Only on the basis of the answer to this question can you be helped.

however, I wouldn’t know why someone would want to have children and then spend the whole day at work. Neither the children nor oneself benefit from that.

I wouldn’t know why women (men) who definitely want to have children would take a training place away from others. That’s completely wasted. These women (men) could make good money working shifts in a factory during the transition phase from school education – marriage – family before it comes to having children.

Do you notice something?

I find ’s attitude completely fine. Everyone has to figure out for themselves how to combine family and career. There are family and kinship constellations as well as professions where it is easier or harder to manage.
While a working grandma certainly doesn’t have time to look after a grandchild one day a week, a retiree with a lot of time might like to do so. It’s always a give and take between two parties.

The social circle closes by founding a family and then supporting it through one’s own work. Luckily, the role distribution of mom at the stove, dad has to work, no longer exists. You don’t spend time at work, you earn your income. And as Alex or someone here already said: there are certainly more interesting ways of life for children than just clinging to mom’s apron strings. Sometimes, however, one must ask whether mom is not rather the one clinging to the child’s strings.

I must also recognize in some mothers that they cannot handle the dual-track of work and child: hecticness at the workplace, hecticness at home, and always a guilty conscience of not being able to give everything. But they have to realize that themselves or determine whether they have the possibility to change this unhealthy situation for them – even if it’s only with more calmness and less ambition and career focus.

Parental leave is certainly justified, and usually it is the case that one has to first be in the role to appreciate the regulations.

We also have such “free spirits” in our circle of acquaintances. There are also clichés like children are happy and so on. The husband can’t do anything with the children at all. You hardly see any toys because everything has to be tidy.
Now they are going on a one-week cruise, of course again without the children who stay with grandma.

I am shocked by these sentences: almost nothing but disparagement and bar-room slogans without any connection.
If a child is happy, that’s good. If it whines, that’s bad. I don’t believe a child is beaten to grandma so that one can work.
Husband: whether he can do something with children or not has nothing to do with his work, but with personal characteristics that shape him as a person.
Toys: and if it was messy with “your free spirits” and toys were scattered everywhere, it would be said: they are messy and have no time for upbringing. Of course, work would be blamed.

And vacation from toddlers should be something more couples treat themselves to so that they can be a couple again. The child will suffer no disadvantage from this.

Mostly these attitudes are rather shaped by envy that one oneself does not have it as comfortably as the neighbor’s family.


Everything fits. Also the figures. However, I would downsize. That usually has a time benefit over the years.

We are also a kind of family model where both parents work full-time. Our little one is not worse off than children who are picked up from daycare after 5 hours. The part-time model is in many cases for the parents' conscience. Sure, working an hour less a day would be great, but honestly, I would invest that hour in regular house cleaning and only then pick up the child as usual.

Yes, a child doesn't cost the world and a first set of equipment can be put together cheaply second-hand. BUT yes! Parental leave must be considered. We both earn well, but I am the main earner. So we have to set aside some money for a relaxed time. Then you must not underestimate the care costs either. Depending on the region, this can cost up to €800 and more for a child under two. Neither child benefit nor employer child supplements make up for that. But this shouldn’t necessarily derail the whole project. Only if children are possibly planned should you roughly calculate it and keep in mind that you might have to save a little beforehand.