Experiences with financing house construction?

First of all, good evening,

my wife and I, living in the Leipzig area, are currently trying to find out whether we can afford a single-family house, so we are still relatively at the beginning in terms of information.

We have an offer for a single-family house from Heinz von Heiden, 125 sqm, knee wall with air heat pump for 160 TEUR. We have added approximately 30 TEUR additional construction costs and 40 TEUR for the land.
Our monthly net income is about 3100€ (50/50), we currently have about 30,000 equity and no debts.
Children are not there yet, but planned (maximum two).

The friendly house building consultants naturally believe that financing would not be a problem, but we would like to get an opinion from an independent source.
In addition, we wonder whether monthly additional costs of 200€ (according to the Heinz von Heiden consultant) are realistic?
We would have liked to save for three more years (~35,000€), but we were advised against it by several sides, as interest rates and construction costs would rise in the meantime and our savings would be eaten up.

We appreciate any honest opinions from you.
Thank you for your help for a realistic assessment.

Difficult. I think the additional costs are set way too low, but there is also some information about this here in the forum. So you won’t manage with the 230k. In principle, a bit more should be bearable with that net income, but as soon as children come and thus one salary disappears, it will get very tight, especially with your 50/50 split. No one knows how interest rates will develop, although it looks like not much will change at least for the near future. Construction prices are definitely rising, especially with the new [Energieeinsparverordnung] rules from 2016 there will be a considerable price increase, but otherwise prices rise by 2-3% a year (a construction expert will surely correct me if I’m wrong). Your savings will therefore actually be eaten up by cost increases. On the other hand, you could then have completed the family planning, so the time with only one income is over. And you will see how the financial situation with children actually develops. Additionally, you will still be better off with the higher equity, especially since you are also more flexible if you don’t have to draw money from the bank for every expense. So what I mean: having 30k equity with a 250k financing is worse than having 60k equity with 280k financing.

At Heinz von Heiden, however, various other costs are added, which can be read here in the forum, but only under the moderated forum "konkrete Firmenfeedbacks"

Have fun browsing
wishes Yvonne

If you assume the mentioned costs, it might still be manageable for one child, but probably not for the second. What are your expenses?

I agree with the opinion of the others. The costs will definitely increase even more, and the additional costs are also estimated too low. You have to add at least 100 more there, possibly even more. As long as there are only two of you, financing should be possible not only on paper but also in reality (unless you are indulging in luxury ;)), but what about children or if one person cannot/will not work full time (part-time when the children are there)? Take a look at what the income and expenses look like then. Because then it will at least be very, very tight. Personally, I would take the path of "waiting a bit longer" and "accumulating equity." In 2 or 3 years, the situation might look completely different. Apparently, you are still young, and the salary will probably increase as well. If then maybe 1 or 2 children are there, you will know what to expect financially and can approach building or buying a house more relaxed. :) But that is just my personal opinion.

Thank you for your answers. :)

Our monthly expenses can really be described as low.
For the net income I provided, I based it on the smallest possible amount; on average, it's about 300 - 400 euros more due to bonuses, etc., but not fixed – plus there are two 13th monthly salaries... But I don't want to make it look better than it is...

After we looked for a larger apartment (80-90 sqm) and, of course, prices around 800€+ apply there, we came up with the idea to inform ourselves about building a house.

So it looks more like waiting a little longer, we just didn't want to "waste" time.