House purchase / Equity / Construction financing

You only need a real estate agent for pricing, the rest you can handle yourself. Laypersons often claim the commission saved for the buyer entirely or partially for themselves and then set some fantasy prices in their listings that some "expert" from uncle, colleague, etc. has instilled in them ("What, you only want that much? Are you giving it away? Write this and that in, you'll see, you'll get the money nowadays..."). Quite often, the opposite happens and you end up with less than originally planned because the property gets thoroughly spoiled by the long online exposure. If the lay seller overshoots the target by too much and the price then has to be visibly adjusted for everyone, interested parties will become noticeably bolder and the "lowest last price" group will come into play. That's just how it can go.

In which region are you looking? Is the 350k€ the budget for everything included?

How far would you be willing to go into the western part of Cologne? It’s not many kilometers until prices and demand become somewhat more relaxed.

Radius: Pulheim, Frechen, Hürth, Erftstadt, Königsdorf.

My father and uncle live in the condominium (in Saarland). But without Hausgeld. Here in NRW I see condominiums everywhere with Hausgeld included. Is that common? I didn’t know that until recently.

What exactly is Hausgeld used for?

My husband and I calculated once: in Pulheim a new house with 22 (I think) condominiums is being built. The price is okay. We would have to pay 12,000 euros extra for a parking space, but no commission for that. That balances out and only 1% repayment since it’s a new build. So far, so good. Then we got the info about the Hausgeld. Phew... just about 300 euros extra Hausgeld to pay every month and that forever scared us off.

Too bad, it would have been too good to be true.

Area: Pulheim, Frechen, Hürth, Erftstadt, Königsdorf.

Erftstadt should be possible for some locations.

We have some equity in hand and we have been to NRW.Bank and to mortgage lenders. We can only afford up to 350,000 euros. More is not possible with our budget.

That will be difficult!