House buying - No idea what one can afford

Hello. You obviously do not need to fundamentally justify your lifestyle. Most people here will surely allow you that. I myself also do not want to have to recalculate after every everyday expense (eating out or outing or admission) whether I can and should still afford it.

BUT: You are writing here in a house-building forum and want advice on which construction loan you can manage. In this respect, your spending behavior in the past, present, and future plays a significant role. Maybe you will be given a 500,000 EUR loan once you have paid off your other loans. In your place, however, I would not take out more than a 300,000 EUR loan. Then you would manage with a rate of ~ €1,200 (repayment 2.5 - 3% plus interest) and, with additional costs, be at about €1,500/month. That would leave enough buffer to "live" your life according to your approach and to bridge financial dry spells for a while. Since I assume that you cannot build for 300,000 EUR, I would look for existing properties.

Either way, good luck.

So roughly €4,000 are "fixed" expenses for us.

Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not saying that I 100% need a house now and that it has to happen at all costs. I’ve already thought that it makes sense to be debt-free first, because that really makes a huge difference in the money that’s left over and can then flow into the house.

What bothers me is just that it takes forever: first you have to save tightly to become debt-free faster, then you have to save time-wise again until you have equity. That’s just annoying as described above, because then you only have a house in 5 years. So I think that the banks should evaluate it the same way, that maybe it’s a bit tighter at the beginning, but from the 5th year on it’s a completely different story.

But that sounds and probably is naive, I can already guess the answers

Well, but that’s the problem. Somewhere it catches up with you that you’d rather live first and take on debt. At the latest when you see the conditions for financing. Then there’s a surcharge of 0.50% or more because you’ve lived so far and not saved. Over time, that can easily be €20-30k on a €300k loan during the term.

€4k fixed costs on a €5-6k income and then holidays and other things is already a big deal. Your warm rent of €1,200 will probably increase to €2,000+ then.

I wish you a good life, but both won’t work like that anymore with children.

Food???? I also sometimes eat lunch for only 5 euros, but that can’t always be done.

Since nutrition is very important to us, we actually cook almost exclusively ourselves. We are also very particular about this topic. In any case, 300-400€ per month is more than enough. (This does not mean eating out, etc.)

Of course, we also take vacations and do other things. You don’t just get the regular income but also holiday pay, Christmas bonus, etc. This year, over 3000€ in tax was refunded altogether, which alone is almost enough for a vacation.

3. 4,500 Eur income and saving 3k? Then obviously there are no children and/or no rent?

No children, but rent.

Otherwise I can’t really imagine how that’s supposed to be a somewhat nice life?

With an appropriate JOB where both must work full-time well over 50 hours a week ...

.....

oh man, what's going on now... what is happening here? How much more clearly can I make it that I currently only want to assess the current situation ... man man man.

What have I done to WHOM and what is the forum here for, if not also to have such a discussion?

I just don't know what is realistic, not even if we were debt-free now, for example. Quite specifically, we have seen a dream house, it is listed by the Sparkasse for 399k, but from 1964, so there is certainly still a lot to do and will be later. That means you would need about 450k alone to get the thing. We wouldn't do anything inside at first, unless something is really urgent, but later gradually. We would rather live with an older bathroom in favor of having a house earlier.

I also think it is too expensive, even if we were debt-free, but I just can't assess it. I can imagine spending about 2,000 euros in total for the topic of the house, i.e. loan, additional costs and reserves. Possibly also a bit more and first not taking any expensive vacations for a while, for example.

But I think I can forget about this house at the moment.

Other topic: Are such house prices still negotiable or is it all basically fixed when it goes through brokers of the S-Kasse?

I don't know what you want to hear. With your income, this scale would not be a problem at all. Whether you want to restrict yourselves that much is something no one can answer for you here. 450k€ is really nothing special for a decent house with land. Whether the house is above market value, you have to ask an expert.

I'll give you another tip on how you might get your question answered better and more "stress-free." Find an independent financing advisor (e.g., Interhyp, Dr. Klein, etc.), present your intended construction sum to him, and he will ask you the rest. You should have your finances exactly in view and be able to tell him what monthly installment you can imagine. Then you will receive the banks' non-negotiable offers directly (although there will be no room for negotiation for you) and thus already have a very realistic overview of what would be possible for you individually. Time required approx. 2 hours.

Different topic: Are such house prices still negotiable or is everything basically fixed when it goes through agents of the S-Kasse?

House prices for existing properties are generally negotiable.