How is the construction boom? Still there?

Besides, One Man Show does not automatically mean illegal work...

From a working-class background: With the dependencies that arise from collaborative work on an individual's project, according to my experience, "everyone" could not manage a large project alone. Much of the sense of community arose out of sheer necessity. That is why no one really asked themselves whether they wanted it. In the rural south of Germany, we took our young children along, for a little allergy sufferer we carried a milk goat for the bottles, there was no electricity anyway. By the way, those were the best-tolerated bottles of all! The senior citizens of the builders could no longer bend well, but they had the goat and brought a snack. It was fun, there was participation for everyone, that was 40 years ago, we are still friends today. If everyone has everything, of course, you don't need to ask anyone. But when it is necessary, other behaviors develop. That was not worse!

Whether you have the chance to get help from many friends who are craftsmen always depends. I suspect that many people nowadays do not live where they grew up. As a result, you rarely have friends in the trades who are regularly available.

That’s exactly what I suspected in some thread as well. You move to X for studies, eventually the family comes and the apartment is too small. A house or even just nice living there is hardly affordable, so you move outwards. The friends from university are all theoretical people and certainly not motivated to toil on the construction site for weeks. And what also adds to that are the travel times. The one week when I did something myself, I spent over 10 hours in the car just to get to the construction site and back. Of course, this was on top of workdays with over 10 hours. After that week, I am glad that we are neither painting nor laying floors, because that is absolutely not family-friendly. After moving in, you tackle the garden yourself, but there we live locally and can simply spend one or two more hours working after dinner.

Besides, One Man Show does not automatically mean undeclared work...

Of course not! I didn't imply that connection either.
It was only about the argument that the money goes to the boss and not to the workers. In a one man show, it’s the same person.

My parents also financed at 9% and were not necessarily wealthy. But that was a different time. In the village, everyone knew people who could help, a lot was done on your own. I think the construction itself was not technically very demanding back then. And there was no BG Bau that contacted everyone who was helping on the construction site. :D On Saturdays, a whole group of private helpers from friends and family was fed, but in return, you built almost at material cost.
My mom recently said that the way we build (general contractor, high loan) they couldn't have built back then. The incomes didn’t allow that. I think it’s just very hard to compare regardless of the interest rate.

I think that’s simply the point: the expectations are getting higher and higher, and people want to do as little themselves as possible. Plus more consumption desires like iPhones and vacations three times a year. That wouldn’t have been possible back then either. I really wonder if the construction costs have actually risen that much in relation to income, or if we’ve just become a bunch of spoiled brats who are now being brought back down to earth.

By the way, I don’t hear much about this topic currently. But we are right in the middle of renovations and there are craftsmen here. So stress here ;-)

Besides, One Man Show does not automatically mean undeclared work...

On the subject, I have a little anecdote. After our failed move, we were looking for someone who could take care of finishing work for us. At first, we had a German fellow in discussion, who initially complained about the evil tax office, saying they had once shut down his business because he couldn’t pay his taxes. Afterwards, he gave us a highly racist talk about the evil foreigners, and that he could call a fellow colored citizen the N-word, that they wouldn’t mind at all. He only wanted to be paid in cash.
The second candidate for the job (who ultimately did the work) was one of those so-called "evil foreigners." At the end of the work, he wrote me a receipt. I quote him from memory roughly like this: "I do everything only by invoice. I don’t mess with the tax office. I’m not crazy."
Well. :)