How much should a mid-terrace house cost per square meter today?

That's a pretty strange calculation with the interest = cold rent. Because as a tenant, I am not forced to build up assets of 300, 400, 500,000 EUR through repayment.

And it's not like you don't have to save money at all in your own home. Of course, you have to do that too, even more than when renting. Because the new heating system, the damage to the roof, you pay for all that yourself. And vacation, car, furniture, this and that, you also need in your own home.

I would also estimate at least 500k to 600k for the land value and a house from 2016 with the mentioned data. A purchase price factor of 30 and more and a gross yield of 3% is normal today. Your offer at a 5% yield is so embarrassing that the landlady will doubt your seriousness. And new buildings from 2016 have not decreased in price, but have certainly increased in value by at least 1/3 since 2016. If your landlady bought the house back then for 350k to 400k, she will easily be able to sell it now for 500k-600k. And she still has your current rent. And she definitely wants to realize exactly this profit.

So the prices mentioned are roughly what’s typically paid here for new builds. Wouldn’t you expect some kind of discount there?

We are in a cheaper region (230 land reference value), but 20 minutes to Dortmund city center by public transport right outside the door and our end-of-terrace house with 143 sqm living space plus usable basement, plus prefabricated garage and including painting and flooring and terrace (and also with air-to-water heat pump + underfloor heating) (so roughly move-in ready, as much as you can get in a new build) costs us €515k. The middle house next to us is still available, listed for €495k, although the plot is also a bit smaller (188 sqm) and I believe the prefabricated garage is no longer included there.

I wouldn’t expect huge price reductions for a house from 2016, but 500k to 600k still sounds like a lot to me?

And new buildings from 2016 have not decreased in price, but have definitely increased in value by at least 1/3 since 2016.

Oops. My house, completed in 2017, is in a similar range, but I was a bit skeptical about the "increased in value by 1/3" part. So I searched for "construction cost index" and it really blew my mind: Starting from 2015, we are now already at 160% according to the averaged construction cost index :oops: o_O :oops: o_O :oops:
And in 2016, they no longer installed switch burner boilers either.

So as much as the calculation shocks me personally, what once cost 400k in 2015 now costs 640k. If I were a seller, I would first ask for that price and see if anyone flinches.

That's true, that's still a lot of money. But I regularly observe our housing market here (Speckgürtel einer Großstadt) and houses built from 2000 onwards are just as expensive as new builds. Since you can easily install an air-to-water heat pump in these houses due to the good insulation. There is absolutely no price difference between a house from 2010 and a house from 2022. Everything according to the Energieeinsparverordnung 1995 is basically suitable for heat pumps without major renovations. That's why prices for young used houses are also very high. And they are still sold quickly and are not online for long here. There aren't many people selling such a house now anyway. Why should they? The majority of buildings from the 50s and 60s naturally drop by about 50% in price due to the poor insulation. It's no coincidence that apartment and house prices have more than doubled since 2010 in many cases and have even tripled in the Greater Hamburg/Munich/Berlin/Frankfurt/Cologne area.

Do you know who the townhouse was built with? So if it was one of the big providers, maybe you can google what they charge today for similar projects.