Financing land and house construction

What would be the alternative? Waiting for interest rates or construction costs to go down?

For example, (a) scale down now or (b) buy land, pay it off, and wait to build until the income situation has eased again.

And I mean maybe it’s also because of us. But with 2 kids aged 6 and 1, we already get pretty sweaty, my wife can hardly work more than 4 hours. Picking up, dropping off, that all takes an incredible amount of time. Then the older one has hobbies, friends, she has to go there and back, etc. With 3 kids, 5, 3, 1, I really can’t imagine at all that there’s still time left for a part-time job, especially if there’s also a house and garden to maintain.

Well, I know several such constellations here at our daycare. As soon as the youngest child is in daycare, work starts again, even with a house. No idea how happy the people are, but they do it.

The story about the main breadwinner is, in my opinion, nonsense. If one earner fails, and really for a longer time or completely, then 90% of all homeowners go bankrupt or lose their house. It doesn’t matter whether the house costs 2,000 EUR or 4,000 EUR per month.

Well, there is a difference between a complete loss of income or simply less earnings. 6250€ as an employee is a salary you don’t earn everywhere. I’m in the same situation (assuming tax class 3) and my concern is more that I might earn less because I have to change jobs (e.g. the company relocates the department abroad, or you get a boss you don’t get along with at all, …). If one completely fails it’s clear that for the vast majority it’s the end of the line.

And as for the alternative: building farther out? Existing house?

The 150sqm area is sufficient for 5 people, you can even get by with fewer. But I only see two children's rooms upstairs in the VBH Edition 460. Are you putting the third one down in the study? Or is Maxim 460 a different floor plan that neither the search on their website nor Google want to find?

It is a floor plan that is not available online and is called Maxim 461 in this case. An oriel window creates a third children’s room upstairs. The study is on the ground floor.

For example, (a) scaling back now or (b) buying the plot, repaying, and waiting with building until the income situation has relaxed again.

It actually was a consideration to just buy the plot first. But then you have a flexible financing hanging over you and construction costs run away from you year by year. Then the question is whether you have gained anything in the end.

The 150sqm area is sufficient for 5 people, you can even manage with less. (...)

Always especially funny when people who live as three on more space say that...

Your memory is deceiving you, we have about 130sqm. I grew up in 125sqm with five people and even childhood only left me with minor damage ;)

With this whole setup, so many alarm bells are ringing for me, I don’t even know where to start.

Are you sure that you will get the KFW 300 loan? That can only work if you haven’t been receiving this salary for very long. This house price including QNG and foundation slab from Viebrockhaus can never, ever be correct. Be sure to check the construction service description carefully. What is included and what is not? And then please make an Excel sheet where you try to determine all the costs. I can recommend the template from Fertighausexperten for that.

We have a similar household income (even somewhat higher), only 2 children, only vacation in Germany in holiday apartments, and after deducting the expected additional costs for the house, I have come to the conclusion that we can “only” afford a rate of €2600 with a clear conscience. You should definitely calculate this thoroughly again and better be pessimistic than optimistic.