Home purchase financing, moderate income, equity available

Hello everyone,

we are considering buying a house/semi-detached house/apartment. A garden is important to us, so most apartments are out. We live in Hamburg, it will probably be a bit in the outskirts given the prices here, and that is fine for us. Since neither of us is handy, a good energy rating, where we don't have to worry about renovations in the coming years, and a good/like-new condition are important.

Brief key data:
- 1 child, 2nd planned in about 2 years (God willing)
- both employed (permanent contracts), net income together 5200€
- equity 425k (no, not saved from our huge income but mostly gifted)

We would like to set aside some of the equity for moving, emergencies, etc.

Question to you: How much loan is possible and reasonable? Because I see many horror stories on social media about failed house-building projects, buying an existing property is more of an option for us. Except of course for new builds with better conditions through KfW or similar.

Thanks for opinions and assessments.

Question for you: How much credit is possible and reasonable?

Possible might be unreasonably much. What is reasonable is decided by your lifestyle and the time when the second child arrives (parental leave, part-time work, etc.) With the income, I would say off the top of my head that €2,000 is a reasonable amount. Depending on your age, that would be about €500,000 credit with approximately 35 years of calculated term (if you are already older, I would repay a bit more – currently calculated with +/- 1.5%).

The failed house building projects are probably just as rare as rental nomads and only regularly appear on Pro7 and RTL plus. Of course, there are troubles and delays and work for you in terms of "conversations" with the craftsmen. If you want to avoid that, you have to buy a maximum 10-year-old existing house or a finished new build (terraced house). With the current salary, a loan of 500,000 to 550,000 is possible. The question is what rent you are currently paying and saving, and whether you are satisfied with 1% repayment. If so much has already been given as a gift, the question is also, will there be anything else as an inheritance?

I actually believe there is a high number of unreported cases of people living in defective buildings, but not even knowing it themselves. Nevertheless, there will be more tenant nomads, simply because the absolute number of tenants is higher than the number of builders. Percentage figures would be interesting, and I would bet on significantly more shoddy construction than tenant nomads.