Construction financing for an existing property

Hello house building forum,

I have been a silent reader for more than a year now and now it's finally our turn :) We, 28 and 27, have found a house (built in 2015, 147m2 without basement with single garage and carport, plot almost 1000m2) and now it’s time for financing. The property costs 385,000 excluding additional costs with kitchen. The house is in top condition and finished except for a few small things like wall color, some baseboards. Our equity is about 260,000€, but we want to use only max. 230,000€ of that (120,000€ saved by ourselves over the last 4 1/2 years). Together we earn about 4200€ per month + Christmas bonus and vacation pay, additionally we own farmland which is leased for 1600€ per year. Children are not planned. We have already had several bank meetings (4 more to follow this week). All banks are quite confident and have already made us a few offers. We want to finance 200,000€ with a repayment rate of 4%. Now I am unsure what interest rates we can expect. The first banks speak of 3.66% to 3.75% for 10 years; I am also not sure if we should maybe set it for 15 years with a slightly higher interest rate (who knows what will happen in 10 years). I think we could finish in 15 years without problems with special repayments. What does the forum think, will we still get better conditions? 10 years or rather 15 years? What is your opinion?

Conditions are currently difficult as they are very volatile. However, that doesn't sound completely wrong. What is your planned installment and remaining debt? Due to the high equity, it should be below 100k in 10 years anyway. Perhaps a full repayment loan would also make sense here?

Before you visit the banks one by one, find a financing broker. Everything else is unnecessary extra effort. They will advise you appropriately. Currently, with your data, you would get an interest rate of 3.64% for 15 years. 10 years 3.47.

4200.-- net for 2 is not exactly a lot, but with the house price probably at the *** of the world. If you have saved that much, why pay off less now, or was the apartment rent-free until now. When children come, it will get tight, unless the salary is unevenly distributed

If you can approximately maintain the savings rate (120,000 euros in 4.5 years corresponds to about 2,000 euros/month), then a financing calculator gives the following data:


10-year loan
monthly installment 1,251 euros = 15,012/year, plus an assumed additional 6,000 euros special repayment per year. That would be 94,500 euros in 4.5 years, which is about 75% of what you have saved in 4.5 years so far.

At the end of the 10-year term, there would still be 31,000 euros of outstanding debt.

I would therefore apply for 10 years unless you have something else planned ;). Children have already been ruled out by you.

We want to finance €200,000 with a repayment rate of 4%. Now I am unsure what interest rates we can expect.

Go to the financing broker and be happy about the conditions you get in the end. Whether it’s 0.20% more or less doesn’t matter at all for your financing, since you won’t notice the difference anyway.

I would ask for 10 years, unless you have something else planned ;).

I agree with that.

when kids come, it gets tight

The kids don’t matter either. I would simply take out a loan with a repayment switch. Then the rate will be significantly reduced if a salary is lower in the long term or monthly costs increase.