House Building Forum - Would you buy or build a house again?

On the topic itself, currently I would again make the decision in favor of home ownership (in whatever form). My wife was more reserved about it, as she also knows the negative consequences of loans from family experience.

You don’t have to be sorry about that – a forum lives on the exchange of opinions and experiences. I just believe that some posts shouldn’t be left as they are.

That is perfectly formulated. Thank you.

Regarding rent, the two of us have simply had - apparently very opposing - experiences. Of course, these are (at least mine) not statistically relevant. I am very glad when there are also positive experiences regarding rent and people speak up for that. At this point, I certainly have reflected my bad experiences in an overly harsh way. Especially I/we, in our situation, didn’t necessarily have to build. And would have had more money (but as I said: emotionally... less quality of life). And the emotional point "I just like it that way" was often mentioned here. Such a statement can never be quantified financially.

You criticized a really very good point in my post. If you spend 20-30% of net income on housing, and income drops in an unexpected way and amount: yes, then you definitely have a problem. With rent as well. When buying a house, of course: visibly more. You are not immune to major life risks. And of course, when building/buying a house, you should calculate so that a temporary loss of income or a longer illness does not necessitate the (emergency) sale of the property. Thank you for your objection. That was not the way I intended to "come across," but in retrospect I recognize my mistake.

My emotional contribution was a "throwing a number into the ring." A number that is not unrealistic. Because, as I said, I know it from many other building families – myself included.

By no means (!) did I want to trigger such a negatively tinted discussion, but rather a much more positive one. Sorry. In the future, I will be much more conscious about what I write when posting.

Best regards Thorsten

The following case has occurred within my close circle of acquaintances:

A couple bought a condominium through the mediation of an insurance broker. At the time of contract signing, there was a guaranteed rent subsidy (since the tenants had been living in the apartment for 30 years and accordingly paid low rent)! As it happened, the company that guaranteed this rent subsidy went bankrupt two years after the purchase... What was once a lucrative apartment purchase turned into an expensive legal dispute with no prospect of compensation!
The tenants, of course, have no disadvantages; they continue to live in the apartment and have not noticed any of this!

What I want to say is that as an owner, you are exposed to completely different problems compared to a tenant & take on a significantly greater risk because you have invested your capital without precisely knowing from when it will be profitable for you.

off topic:

I will be much more conscious in the future about what I write when posting.

We do not expect submissive behavior or softening here in the house construction forum. Also, no one bites (except for very few) or expects perfectionism. There is also no competition.

Everyone is allowed to express their opinion here – but you have to expect that someone might see it differently, that other opinions exist, and that these are expressed in words you yourself might not use.

You can also be wrong sometimes because hearsay is incorrect or time has brought a change.
That is not a problem at all; someone else will correct it, so: keep going!

A brief status update on our house building project:

Yesterday, during the final contract discussion while signing, we decided against it. Why? Because our gut feeling said no to the whole undertaking. Some of the additional costs that had crept in over the last 8 weeks could no longer be transparently justified to us. In the end, it was about a sum of €10,000 that we speculated about where exactly it came from in detail. After our contact person then got grumpy, pulled a face, and made us feel like we should feel bad for questioning certain items so close to signing the contract, we called it off. We had started to put our signature under the offer and the building service description but couldn’t overcome our bad gut feeling when it came to signing the building contract. We felt really bad... then we discussed for 20 minutes and decided against it. What we had to listen to afterward confirmed our decision. Apparently, they had internally bet that we wouldn’t sign and made all sorts of remarks like that. My conclusion: Building with a general contractor / developer? No thanks! If we take up the topic again, we will go the architect route. I’ve really had enough of conversations like this, haggling over every euro like in a bazaar, and accusatory attitudes. We have now looked at nine different GCs, spoken with them, negotiated, hoped, feared, got annoyed, were frustrated, etc. Now 14 months have passed... I’ve had enough for now! And, unfortunately, I have to say, one seller is like another. You can’t trust anyone in this business. I say this deliberately, even if it may cause discussions now. This is not just my experience; everyone told us this in advance, and we always just smiled and thought... oh well... we just ended up with the wrong ones... no no...

And you think it will be better with single awarding? Now you only had to clarify one contract. With single awarding, you go through the whole issue with each trade with 2-3 craftsmen per trade.