Financing single-family house purchase price 365k, additional construction costs 150k, renovation?

Sounds like a complete renovation. Aren't items like new bathrooms missing? What about the heating? How much buffer are you planning?

The heating system is from 2017. Buffer 50,000€. Bathroom from 2003 and okay for us. It's less about feasibility and much more about the question of how we approach the subsidies. About the method. Whether through the bank and KfW, through the bank and BAFA, or combined

No offense, but I wouldn’t even take an asbestos-contaminated, non-solidly built house from the 70s as a gift.
What do you want with a demolition object?

There are pollutants starting with the chipboard, the insulation materials, paints, varnishes, wood preservatives, all the way to asbestos.
Something like that is close to financial suicide.

The condition of the building fabric can usually only be determined after gutting such houses. From experience, houses from that era were not really built to last.

I would steer clear of it and favor a new build. In a few months, the prices will look significantly better and many distressed properties will come onto the market.

Better invite the bank advisor out for a meal so he can broker you such a property. You’ll gain more from that.

Nothing personal, but I wouldn’t even take an asbestos-contaminated, non-solidly built house from the 70s as a gift. What do you want with a demolition project?

There are pollutants ranging from chipboard, insulation materials, paints, varnishes, wood preservatives up to asbestos in such a house. That’s close to financial suicide.

The condition of the building fabric can usually only be determined after gutting in such houses. From experience, houses from this era were not really built to last.

I would keep my hands off it and favor a new build. In a few months, the prices will look significantly better and many distressed properties will come on the market.

Better invite the bank advisor for dinner so they mediate such a property for you. You’ll gain more from that.

Understandable opinion, but I see it differently – except for the pollutants, which we will mostly remove gradually and only leave the wooden frame standing.

That prices will look better has been said for decades. As far as I can judge, the long-term statistics speak against it.

Value losses or price drops are not foreseeable here on the Ostalb and are very unlikely from, for example, Zeiss alone. Nobody believes what is bought here. Rent for a townhouse here averages €1500 cold. If house prices fall, interest rates and rent rise. And that will continue. Almost everything changes hands under the table here and that will remain the case. There are still enough wealthy people here.

If I lived in Saarland or in the far north, I would share your view one hundred percent. But not here on the Alb.

In my opinion, there is also the fact that the rush for existing properties is increasing because new constructions can increasingly no longer be realized

Sounds like a last-minute panic.

But especially with wood, highly toxic impregnating agents were used in the 70s. Formaldehyde in the chipboards and poisons in the wood paints. The house is 50 years old, costs as much as a new build with renovation, but is still essentially an old house at its core.

The real estate market will collapse in the wake of the imminent liquidity crisis due to high interest rates and a lack of new borrowers. Baden-Württemberg is of course very difficult for single-family houses because of the green ideology. They are no longer desired.

In the final phase of a real estate boom, of course, every junk is still bought expensively. You don’t have to be the last stupid buyer.

And you should also consider how much money you are putting in. For that I buy a multi-family house with 10 apartments and never have to work again, while you will be a slave to your bank for the next 30 years.

How low real estate prices can fall we saw 15 years ago in East Germany. They tended toward zero because nobody could finance it and demand collapsed. And there even the location was almost irrelevant.

In Leipzig, they were giving away multi-family houses right in the city! I myself was present in Halle at a multi-family house completely renovated by the federal government. The house was fully renovated for 300,000 euros, had 6 apartments, and was bought for 22,000 euros.

Just as a warning example of what can happen. Always be patient and wait for the right moment.