I have now read through 12 pages. Many tips and suggestions have been given. I will do it differently now – I will report how we did it.
After we halted a first construction project for personal reasons, the search started again. Due to the great distance to the desired area, we consciously decided to buy a (almost) new house.
In a first phase, besides the possible region, it was mainly about criteria such as shops, doctors, other infrastructure, location of the residential property, etc.
Afterwards, we defined the criteria for the house – simply those criteria that are really MUSTs (including of course price, size of the house, etc.).
Based on (historical) experiences, we focused on immoscout (from my point of view, you can forget about eBay-Kleinanzeigen in this case, because there are no really good properties). The search started (online) – with our criteria, there weren’t hundreds of houses… (mainly because we wanted a newer house).
From our point of view, "interesting" houses appeared in 2 years (!!!) only a handful. Of those, the most interesting ones were from private sellers, not from agents. And one point is essential: CALL IMMEDIATELY, VISIT IMMEDIATELY. If it suits you, EXPRESS IMMEDIATELY that you want to buy it. And by that I really mean IMMEDIATELY. Good properties are at least reserved within 48 hours at the latest!
Because we live very far away, I did a viewing via WhatsApp video – beforehand, I read the dossier intensively and also the more detailed and extended documents sent to me. I did the video viewing even though the house was "99%" already sold – and this 99% purchase actually fell through – thanks to the contact with the seller, he then called me about 4 weeks later. And I committed to the purchase (yes, without ever having seen the house in person). By the way, it is the third house I buy – so I have the corresponding experience in both building and buying.
And yes, it worked. For those who are curious: we did visit the house LIVE – on the day of the notary appointment, less than 2 hours before. And yes – it was a stroke of luck, because it really is exactly what we searched for months. We are lucky that we can still tackle the landscaping. Inside, the house is better than I could ever have planned myself.
In summary: Search daily on immoscout – CALL IMMEDIATELY if something appeals. Arrange a viewing immediately (by any means – possibly by video). If you like it, commit extremely quickly.