House move - How to plan interim financing?

Thanks in advance for the answers. We want to wait until next year because at least for me there will still be some changes in salary until May 24. My wife will definitely have to give up her job, and it is also planned that she will no longer work or at most do a mini-job. The loss of her salary will then be almost completely compensated.

We are already looking at houses to at least get an overview of the market. Currently, we would only take the plunge for an absolute dream property that meets all our conditions.

Oh, and the new property should not be a new building, but an existing property, ideally already well modernized. We don't want months of remodeling.

By the way, our terraced house is located in [Köln], which also explains the high value (standard land value over 1000€/m²). We are always amazed at how much house and land you get for the value of our terraced house in the countryside! We also always look at how much identical terraced houses in this residential area are offered for, and they are all always around €550,000 (+/- €30,000). Of course, we don’t know how much they actually sell for; we have never sold a property and don’t know how much negotiation happens afterward. Someone from our row of houses sold their house about 2.5 years ago, and we know it was about €450,000. But that was 2.5 years ago!

Look relaxed. There won't be any problems with the bank.

Don't say that! The cats have to move anyway. They don't know the word temporary move. Situations can always arise where you have to live temporarily elsewhere, e.g., in case of severe water damage.

In a rental apartment, however, they don't have outdoor access, which they probably have in the house. If they're not used to that, you won't enjoy the apartment. Cats don't like change. Even a move stresses them out extremely. Our two took several days to get used to the new living situation even when moving within the same property.

Especially since the rental apartment would have to be correspondingly large. Our 4 cats would go crazy in a 50m² dump and we certainly don't want to subject them to that. A variable loan would also be quite interesting, the interest rate would certainly be better, but the bank might not like that the old loan is still outstanding and a pledge exchange probably wouldn't work either.

By the way, our terraced house is located in Cologne, which also explains the high value (standard land value over €1000/m²). We are always amazed at how much house and land you get for the price of our terraced house in the countryside! We also always look at how much identical terraced houses in this residential area are offered for, and they are all always around €550,000 (+/- €30,000). Of course, we don’t know what they actually sell for, as we have never sold a property and don’t know how much is negotiated afterwards. Someone from our row of houses sold their house 2.5 years ago, and we know that it was about €450,000, but that was 2.5 years ago!

So a note on that: Cologne also has an expert committee for land values. You can request information from the purchase price collection there and then receive actual purchase cases, albeit anonymized. But you can restrict the location and other details. Alternatively, you can check if there is a real estate reference value in your area; if so, this is a good guideline, especially if your real estate reference zone is fairly homogeneous, meaning it does not differ significantly in terms of location (for example, houses near green areas versus houses on busy streets).

Because in such cases, the real estate reference value generally fits quite well. Moreover, Cologne also publishes interim reports on the market situation. You can check those as well, because according to current developments it is to be assumed that one should rather deduct something from the calculated value. Until last year, the asking price was almost equal to the selling price, but this is currently no longer entirely the case. But as I said, the real estate reference value can be a good indication!

The banker in me tells me that everything is possible with you that you can imagine. - Sell the house now and rent it (then tenancy law applies) - Sell the house now and agree on a right of use (then tenancy law does not apply) - Sell the house now with a price reduction and move out later (by agreement) - Buy a new house now with variable financing and a land charge on the old (+ new house) - Do nothing now and look for a new house. Then directly swap the mortgage + variable bridging finance etc. Just talk to your current bank to see what they would offer you.