Financing plan - How much can we afford?

A house with 2 floors and 120 sqm will probably have less than 90 sqm of living space at the end of the day.

Especially the offer: 199k for 119 sqm of living space including 850 sqm of land. I just think, McFly, wake up. Calculated conservatively at 1,500€/sqm, the house is 178,500€... so 20k left for almost 1 hectare of land. That doesn’t add up, right?

You can nicely see it in the floor plan of the house in the given immscout ID. It’s small, but doable; if you add up the sqm from the attached floor plan, you get 129 sqm (including storage room/utility room).

But the OP had asked about a loan of 300–350K.

Even if 90 remain, three people can live quite comfortably there without it feeling cramped. As I said, not spacious but not cramped either. We currently live as three on 75sqm, I don’t feel cramped now.

With 2 floors and 120 sqm, one must not forget what is deducted from that: 2 hallways, stairwell, utility room/HAR.
As said, ETW is the keyword here. You may also have 2 hallways, but no stairwell counted in the area and no HAR. That is in the basement, and normally the heating etc. is there as well.

A house with 2 floors and 120 sqm will probably have less than 90 sqm of living space at the end of the day.

Moreover, the offer: 199k for 119 sqm living space including 850 sqm of land. I just think, McFly, wake up. Conservatively calculated at €1,500/sqm, the house costs €178,500... so that leaves €20k for almost 1 hectare of land. That doesn’t add up, does it?

But even 90 sqm is enough for some and they are even happy with it.
Building a house doesn’t start at 149 sqm and financing over €399,000.

I gladly grant everyone from "them" and you your square meters and big houses, we two even have more than some 4-person families.

But there are also down-to-earth people who don’t want or can’t move in this segment.
They build consciously smaller, whether because of costs or their standards.
Often a 100 sqm garden or an open carport or parking space for the family car is sufficient for them.
Terraced houses with 110 sqm without a basement have a higher justification to exist than bigger houses, where the living space is usually only fully used for about a decade.
Residential areas with dozens of these "small" housing units are inevitably more social and tolerant.
For several years the compact house is indeed cozy, but it regenerates by letting children play outside and teenagers seek their community among peers.
For a girls’ night often a bed as a seat is enough, a computer with three seats for gaming also doesn’t consume much space. Children, regardless of age, don’t really care how the stairs are designed or whether they are in a hall instead of a corridor. Except if adults show them otherwise.
And if the 110/120 sqm actually become too small someday, there is the option to sell this starter property and get something bigger.
Due to time constraints, I have to end here.

Hm, growing up in a 67 sqm apartment... I lacked nothing. Funny discussion...

My parents have a house of just under 120 sqm. I never had the feeling that the four of us lived cramped there. I also found my 12 sqm room to be sufficient. And that with slanted ceilings in the room!

I think it’s really great too, I would do it if I could. But to just say outright that it’s too small, I also find silly. But it probably really depends on how you grew up. With my parents, the four of us had just under 65 sqm, my partner lived with her sister in one room until she went away to study. I think it was 10 sqm. It was manageable, but it really wasn’t nice. But no lasting damage is noticeable. Of course, if you grow up in 200 sqm, then 100 naturally feels like a doghouse. There’s just something for every budget somehow.