Defensive offer, or have house prices become so expensive?

Haha, never. You have no idea what real wealth is, I'm afraid. A house – even in the countryside now costs 800K if you build it. Who do you think would then have to count among the richest people? Look at the projects here. I don't want to put anyone in the spotlight now, but they all lie between 700 and 800K on a plain plot of land in a new development area. Now transfer that to the big cities. A regular house here no longer goes for under 1 million. A bit of garage and a somewhat bigger piece of land and you've already got 1.7. We're not talking about a castle here – it's still a single-family house. You are completely blinded by the big numbers. That's really fascinating – no wonder advertising with 20% discount is so effective.

Many people here also build for less [- or not at all.] Or buy used houses in non-metropolitan commuter belt areas for 400,000. What is presented here sometimes significantly distorts the average.

No, I don't think so. There are really interesting perspectives and advice in there. That it could have been condensed to 1-3 pages – fine. But then it would have been only half as entertaining.

I would doubt that. I would be interested in a renovation-free property in the metropolitan commuter belt for 400K. Maybe right next to the highway/airport/landfill – something like that? But I wouldn’t use that as a generalization.

I wrote that many simply do not build in the commuter belt. Friends of ours bought a 15-year-old house with 2 hectares of land and a garage near Oldenburg for 380,000 euros for their family of four. They always laugh when I tell them about the prices around Starnberg.