L-Bank Z-20 limited residential area with basement

If you achieve the 50%

or have an income too high to qualify for the subsidy.

Then you don't need any subsidy either.

A classic single-family house with 160 sqm for 2E+2K is no longer feasible.

LOL - what you are writing is luxury. With 2E+2K, you can manage very well with a well-planned 120 sqm. The 160 sqm comes from the years when money had no price and you could afford everything because you could.

I find the L-Bank loan to be handled very restrictively.

No, like many subsidized loans, it is meant to fulfill the basic need "housing." Everything beyond that, like the 160 sqm, does not require subsidies, as those are not purposeful desires.

A classic detached single-family house with 160 sqm for 2 adults + 2 children is no longer feasible.

160 sqm is not a "requirement" for the average family of 2 adults and 2 children, but a "requirement plus over 40 percent." And the purpose of funding programs / development banks is not to finance people with an income only twenty or even less percent above average to have twice as high demands. For average earners, the "usual suspects" conjure up semi-detached houses with 140/145 sqm, in which a 3rd child or a comfortable-sized home office are already taken into account. And increasingly, even the family of the lawyer or established general practitioner is satisfied with this framework, who just a handful of years ago would have built the Maxime 810 II opposite.

I agree with you that 160sqm (especially with the current prices) can be considered a luxury that no longer has anything to do with neediness. However, the number only partly comes from a time when money did not matter. The L-Bank itself advertises this figure as the limit of appropriateness for a 4-person household. I believe 10sqm per person is then added. For me, this already suggests to some extent that this funding may also be used precisely to realize this still appropriate size. It does not evoke the feeling that one is far into luxury with 160sqm but rather at the upper end of what can be considered normal.

The neediness check is then completely regulated by the balance between maximum burden and the loan amount I can actually manage with this burden. This is then more the townhouse project with a small plot than the detached house project with a large garden and 20sqm panoramic children's rooms.

That one can also be happy with 120sqm as a 4-person household I see every day: We live in a 170sqm townhouse for rent and have converted the upper floor of about 50sqm almost completely into storage space. Ergo, I immediately agree with you that one can manage well with well-planned 120sqm plus some storage space for four people.

as a limit

Exactly. A limit. But no obligation to actually build the 160sqm.

That suggests to me to some extent that this subsidy may indeed be used to realize exactly this still reasonable size.

Not only suggests. That is how it is.

That does not evoke the feeling that you are living in luxury with 160sqm, but rather at the upper end of what can be considered normal.

If you can't afford something yourself or a good is exorbitantly expensive and you indulge yourself, then that is one definition of luxury. Things you don't really need. 160sqm are exactly that. Affordable living space is to be generated within a firm upper limit. People in need do not require 160sqm for four persons.

The itself advertises this number as the limit of appropriateness for a 4-person household. I believe an additional 10 sqm is added per person. This suggests to me to some extent that this funding may also be used to realize exactly this still reasonable size. It does not give the feeling that you are well into luxury with 160 sqm, but rather at the upper end of what can be considered normal.

Oh, I had thought the 160 sqm limit already took into account families with more than two children. For a "still able to build as a young family" funding program, I find this framework extremely generous. I believe the standard has shifted because the square floor plan villa with a 10m edge length results in this measurement. But it is also a prime example of amateur planning (by sales and draftsmen) or of the unnoticed surplus areas or empty living value calories that arise from it. This house type completely wastes the oversize so that it is of no use. Therefore, when looking at the countless equally poor standard floor plans, almost everyone inevitably comes to the conclusion that nothing is really too large (except for the ballroom bath, which one already has to artificially shrink by putting a T in the middle). This is how the flat earth theory of 160 sqm as index 100 for decent living space is created. It remains fat nonetheless.

[...]
If you can’t afford something yourself or a good is exorbitantly expensive and you treat yourself to it, then that is a definition of luxury. Things you don’t really need. 160 sqm are exactly that.

Affordable living space should be created within a hard upper limit. People in need don’t need 160 sqm for four persons.

My point was exactly that with the L-Bank you can no longer finance 160 sqm, regardless of whether you can afford it or not. The 160 sqm limit just suggests that it’s possible. The houses have only become so expensive that the affordable limit is well below that, since otherwise one would logically hit one of the L-Bank’s boundary conditions: Either the required credit frame exceeds the maximum permissible burden, you earn too much, or you have too much equity.

The L-Bank’s 160 sqm limit tempts one to believe that the funding program could still be an option. However, the funding conditions set a framework that at current construction prices draws a hard limit at (estimated) 120 or 130 sqm.

My thesis is: If the L-Bank adjusted the conditions here to e.g. 100 sqm + 10 sqm per child, then a similar number of eligible projects would fall out without all the brainstorming along the lines of: "How can I still grab the Z15/20 loan with my 160 sqm villa?"

Edit: And if this thesis is correct: Then you don’t even have to visit the L-Bank website with the standard floor plan from the prefab house sales or the draftsman for over 150 sqm or more. At least not for the Z15/20 programs.