Feasibility of financing a single-family house approximately 150 m²

Have you already thought about whether you want to build with an architect or with a FH provider / general contractor?

We want to build with an architect. We also looked at several prefabricated house providers or shell houses, but overall that was too inflexible regarding the floor plan and the incorporation of personal contribution.

1) The expenses seem quite high to me – you are probably still in the phase where you are happy to earn money and gladly spend it. We are about the same age and spend around 2,500 euros per month (excluding cold rent), and I don’t exactly feel that we live frugally, on the contrary. We always cook fresh and treat ourselves to everything we want :) So there is already a big lever for you. 1,250 euros per person should be enough, rather less.

I honestly wouldn’t know how we should get to 1,250€ per person per month right now. With car costs of about 500€ per person and retirement provision/disability insurance/insurances/electricity/internet, not much is left for food, leisure, and holidays. Once the cars are paid off, our costs will decrease by 200€ per person.

2) I would definitely calculate very conservatively for the house costs, you can’t estimate that at all if you have never built before. I believe the forum will agree with me here. Better to calculate too much than too little. In your place, I would assume 3,000 euros per sqm. That would be 450k euros for 150 sqm. The important thing is that the house stands – garage, carport, etc. can be added later. Consider with personal contribution that you also need the time next to your job for it, I would also be cautious about that. Most importantly, in my opinion, you need to have a price as a basis for the loan at the bank without personal contribution. Then you can only save at the end and decide very freely (also depending on your life situation) what you actually do.

At 3,000€ per sqm I don’t quite see us in our region. I would rely on the architect’s cost calculation plus an appropriate buffer. Yes, the most important thing is that the house stands, as I wrote in the initial post that the garage can be omitted if necessary.
Basically, I agree with you on the personal contributions. However, my husband, as a trained electrician, will definitely do that part himself, and I, as a trained building services planner, will at least contract these trades myself and, if possible, also contribute some parts as personal work. Several friends in our circle have built a Y-Tong kit house themselves in recent years, but that’s too much for us.

3) So I would not take 527,000 euros overall, but at least (!) 600,000 euros for the bank. If you have anything left over, you either pay it back or put it into the outdoor facilities or the garage, or you’ll come up with something (or special repayment)

4) With a 600k loan, you have a rate of exactly 2,000 euros to the bank at 1.5% interest and 2.5% repayment, then after 15 years a remaining debt of 347,853 euros – doable

600,000€ already sounds extremely high for a normal 150 sqm house with land at a (somewhat) reasonable price and without a garage. But if it comes down to that according to the architect’s cost calculation, then we can’t change it.

How high is the speculation tax anyway? I would sell the second property directly, after that your financing will really be relaxed, even with children. Of course that costs you tax and possibly capital gains, but you sleep peacefully. It’s also a matter of personal preference how to approach it. Just calculate what you lose in taxes.

That basically depends on the selling price. I will first assume that we can offset about €80,000 of our costs for the property to be sold. That would mean that with a selling price of €100,000 we would still have to tax €20,000 at our income tax rate. That would be about €8,000 in speculation tax.

At €120,000 we would already have €16,000 in taxes, and at €150,000 (which I no longer consider unrealistic in the area) €28,000 in taxes.

And at the moment I still don’t really see the point in giving away so much money for a property for which we ourselves invested a lot of effort, money, and risk beforehand. But if it can’t be helped, of course we would have to sell.

Are you building with a developer? Make a deal with him... You sell him the plot exactly for what you paid, he makes a fixed price with X discount included...

He then builds 2 houses there (also reduces the costs) and can sell them directly with a good markup...

Thank you very much for the suggestion but under no circumstances will we build with a developer. The house and plot are our dream and we would never build (or have built) something where we can contribute so little and have to let others do everything.

Not to mention that we are currently in the pleasant position of being able to choose our neighbors to some extent.

600,000€ already sounds extremely much for a normal 150 sqm house with land at a (somewhat) reasonable price and without a garage.

Welcome to 2022 :) Many need 600k just for the house, without the land. But you will see. Small tip: You should at least consider a few pieces of advice to some extent. It really helps!

Welcome to 2022 :) Many people need 600k just for the house, without the land. But you will see. A little tip: You should at least consider a few pieces of advice to some extent. It really helps!

Thank you very much for the tip. We have already had intensive discussions at home. We are now commissioning the architect first and hope that the cost calculation won't look too bad. The loan will then be applied for anyway based on this + a sufficient buffer.

Thank you very much for the tip. We have also been discussing intensively at home. We will first commission the architect and hope that the cost estimate does not look too bad. The loan will then be applied for based on this + sufficient buffer.

keep us posted!
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