Financing options for a rather high-priced single-family house

If you then also encounter the wrong tenants, you have a big mess.

With a dozen houses, one wrong tenant won't bring the house of cards down. However, given the problems in the thread, I no longer see the classic issue of the forum.

That is clear.
My father once rented to a family with two children who stopped paying after 6 months.
You can certainly imagine how much nerves, time, and money that costs. He only got rid of the family after a year with a court order. The apartment was so damaged that he had to renovate for 30,000,-.
Something like that really takes a toll, even with a dozen properties.
By the way, the apartment is in Salzburg’s center and has 130m². So not some kind of [Assi Wohnung am Dorf] rented out for 350,- cold.

Something like that really takes its toll, even with a dozen properties.

No risk, no fun. Either be content with a peaceful ordinary employee life or take some risks and achieve greater (great) wealth.
Germans are very afraid to take risks with property. Making mistakes is also not allowed in normal professional life. This mentality is completely different in other countries. You can also see this in the startup scene.

Of course, a bad tenant can move in sometimes. But these are absolute exceptions. I could also say that this normally does not happen anyway, because over 20 years with various properties and rentals, I have had exactly 0 problems. But one negative example (exception, not the rule!) is enough to mentally distance oneself far from rental properties. One should not forget that the state pays for almost half of the apartment renovation and vacancy costs – where else do you get such strong support?

You are of course right. I am certainly a burned child. The chance of encountering a black sheep is relatively rather low.

After I announced to my circle of friends that I am building and will probably move next year, a handful of questions about the apartment I currently live in came up. On the one hand, I would, of course, be more certain that the rent is paid (for example, there is also a teacher couple among them); on the other hand, I would fear disharmony here due to assumed landlord obligations regarding the friendship...

Back to the topic

Let's assume we find a house and the price is between 500-600K€.

Of course, we don't know how much the renovation will ultimately cost.

Does it then make more sense to take out one large loan with estimated renovation costs, putting all equity into it, or rather two smaller ones – one for the house purchase and then calmly a second for the modernization? And if the latter option, should all equity go into the larger loan or be split right away, or does it not make any difference at all?