Land purchase and house construction in the current situation - experiences

(...) In the past, building was often more modest when construction costs were high compared to income.

In the past, much, much more was done by oneself than today. The proportion of people doing physical/manual work was much higher than today. Consequently, people were used to hard work anyway, so they were not too proud of it. And of course, people generally knew a lot of others or had craftsmen in the family.

That is no longer the case today. Not only do most home builders shy away from physical labor because they believe that with a few curb stones or 3 tons of gravel they will immediately destroy their joints... such things obviously don’t happen with the completely incorrectly performed exercises in the gym... nowadays people look at you with real pity if you stomp around the house in work pants for two days in a row and mix concrete, with the attitude "Look... he didn’t have the 50,000 EUR for the landscaping gardener like we did. Poor guy..."

The real estate market will collapse. And interest rates are still historically very low.

That provides you (also with regard to further interest rate cuts) a perfect argument against a further collapsing real estate market. There is enough money and the interest rates are low.

Not only economically but also mentally we can declare bankruptcy.

Sorry if you have to do that. But what must be, must be...

In the past, a lot, lot more was done by oneself than nowadays. The proportion of those who work physically/handicraft was much higher in the past than today.

That naturally comes in addition - it was partly cheaper and also EL.

A small local contractor well known to me buys a single-family house from his extended family. Everything renovated and new with a 1000 sqm plot, a very nice detached location in a village about 15 km from a larger district town.

School, kindergarten, baker, butcher, small village shop are available. There is also a larger food company with about 400 employees in the village. Additionally, in the Saale Unstrut wine-growing region.

He renovated the house for sale and offered it for 350,000 euros. After 6 months, it is for sale at 260,000.

I estimate it will then sell for 180,000 in 6 months.

And we are talking here about a house with photovoltaics, a heat pump, underfloor heating, etc. Not a renovation case.

But as far as I’m concerned, build in Tübingen or somewhere else, sink your equity, take out extreme loans and then work the rest of your life for the bank. Everyone as they like. It just works differently.

Sure, modern people today have almost nothing left. Everything clean. Fine by me.

I have my barn and don’t even know what is supposed to go in the container?

In the back part, 40 cubic meters of wood for construction and firewood are stored. That is my emergency reserve.

There are numerous machines like a lathe, drill, grinder, sheet metal bending machine, etc. Nice to have, so to speak. The passage is 4 m high, 5 m wide and 10 m long. Two cars can fit in there as well as 2 trailers. Currently, my vintage tractor is parked in the passage.

I like to tinker and am planning a lift that will also be suitable for motorhomes and transporters.

A barn or hall hardly fits on most plots today, and the 5m eaves height will hardly be approved anymore.

That this causes envy among the propertyless is clear to me. And since I am known to be someone from the lowest income bracket, I just have to help myself. It saves an enormous amount of money if you can do everything yourself.

And now the ROTO MOTO can once again share his wisdom about it.

very nice detached location in a village

I assume that the house is located in your region. So don’t ramble on, name names or the village. Thuringia is the arse end of the world and nobody wants to live there. That’s why the prices are the way they are. And that won’t get better. It’s not the properties, but as so often the location, location, location. In a village in Thuringia without prospects, it will be like at the North Pole. Quite lonely. Sad truth considering how many billions have flowed into the rebuilding of the East and there are great cities there. But just cities – villages are even more out than in the West.

That something like this triggers the envy of the propertyless is clear to me.

Propertyless in terms of "just homeowners"? Maybe one should rather look at the value of the properties. According to your description, even great objects are worth nothing in your region. So you are sitting on a pile of worthless stones which you can pass on to your descendants. Sad. Maybe that’s where your bitterness or your negative attitude comes from? Is it envy of the West?

So you’re sitting on a pile of worthless stones,

What, in your opinion, actually determines the value of a house?

Well, my house at the arse end of the world, if you want to know exactly, about 23 km north of Weimar, the cradle of German democracy, the city of Goethe and Schiller, compared to a house in a suburb of Munich.

You can live in both houses. Nothing more. Whether the house in Munich costs 10 times more doesn't help me if I live in it. The only difference is my house is paid off, the house in Munich still has to be paid off for 30 years.

There is Paulaner on tap here in the beer garden around the corner just like in Munich. Whether I go to a football game at the Olympic Stadium or to the Red Bull Arena Leipzig doesn’t matter either. The distances to the airport are the same as to the ICE train station or the highway.

The intrinsic value of the houses is identical in both cases. The external value doesn’t matter as long as you live in the house yourself.

Sure, I earn more in Munich, but I also need much more money. In the end, I have more money in my pocket in Thuringia than in Munich. And my individual quality of life is significantly higher in Thuringia than in Munich. At least for me.

Notably, there is an influx of foreign citizens into our rural area. There are quite a few large families from the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, or Bulgaria. All good people who work here and don’t want to miss these affordable real estate prices. The predicted vacancy or even the neglect of the East German rural area has not occurred.