Meaningful residential concept for basement granny flat

If we are honest, you then build for a period of 15-20 years and then the premises are already too big again.

There is something to that. That is why we once built with toddlers and once with almost adult children.

There's some truth to that. That's why we built once with very young children and once with almost adult children.

Whoever can, can :) yes, I just wanted to invest my money sensibly and then decided on a multi-family house with exterior dimensions of 12*10m. Sounds big at first, but with a large bathroom, bedroom & office, most of it is already taken ^^ I'm curious how it will be when I finally get to live in it. I'm especially looking forward to the living room with a light cove. What will happen in 10 years is questionable. However, there are currently only two of us, and an area of 200 sqm plus basement would simply be oversized. That way we possibly still have a ground-floor apartment for my parents and a basement apartment for a potential caregiver. There are plenty of use cases for living space!

Whoever can, can :) yes, I just wanted to invest my money sensibly and then decided on a multi-family house with 12*10m exterior dimensions.

Building or buying twice is not a question of "who can, can". The first house is eventually paid off, usually has a decent increase in value behind it, and finances the second house or an apartment, which can then be somewhat smaller. Depending on how you do it, it is nothing more than a reshuffling of investment assets. A new investment is possible, but not necessary. Building a multi-family house right away is more the "who can, can" approach. You finance an infrastructure early on that you cannot optimally use for about two decades, only to then have an infrastructure that is also heavily compromised for the following decades. From my point of view, a functional multi-family house is significantly larger than you plan and also requires a different building site. Your house seems like a mini SUV that is supposed to be spacious, sporty, and off-road capable at the same time. Spacious: see mini. Sporty: as it goes with overweight. Off-road capable: if at all with all-wheel drive, there are large tires on it that give up even on a wet meadow. Well, these vehicles do exist, and some love the "do a bit of everything, but nothing really well" approach. That's not mine. We have meanwhile accompanied our parents until the end of their lives and experienced firsthand how overwhelming life becomes when dementia creeps in and settles. Therefore, one of our guiding principles is to keep complexity structurally as low as possible in old age. With the experience as landlords, we have decided that this is a structural challenge we do not want to face in old age. Another guiding principle that we share with many people is the preservation of one's own autonomy for as long as possible. Here, too, it helps enormously to keep the structural complexity of the living situation low.

Building or buying twice is not a question of "who can, can". The first house is eventually paid off, usually has a decent increase in value behind it, and finances the second house or an apartment, which may then be somewhat smaller. Depending on how you do it, it is nothing more than a reshuffling of investment assets. A new investment is possible but not necessary.

Building a multi-family house right away is more the "who can, can" approach. You invest early in an infrastructure that you cannot optimally use for about two decades, only to then have an infrastructure that remains heavily compromised for the following decades as well. From my point of view, a functional multi-family house is significantly larger than you plan and also requires a different building site.
Your house feels like a mini SUV that wants to be spacious, sporty, and off-road capable at the same time. Spacious: see mini. Sporty: as sporty as possible with overweight. Off-road capable: if at all with all-wheel drive, it has big tires that give up even on a wet meadow. Well, these vehicles do exist, and some love the "can do a bit of everything but nothing really well" approach. Not mine.

We have now accompanied our parents until the end of their lives and have experienced up close how overwhelming life becomes when dementia creeps in and settles. Therefore, one of our guiding principles is to keep complexity structurally as low as possible in old age. With our experience as landlords, we have decided that this is a structural challenge we do not want to face in old age. Another guiding principle, which we share with many people, is to maintain one's own autonomy as long as possible. Here too, it helps enormously to keep the structural complexity of the living situation low.

You must excuse me, the statement was by no means intended to be negative. For us, it was rather a decision made at the right time. We were still offered discounts by the developer due to favorable family circumstances. Owning a house of that size without additional rental income would not have been possible in this form. I finance the apartment without my girlfriend; she supports by taking over the household costs, that's how we handle it. It cannot be ruled out that when children arrive, we might say that we will build again. However, the apartment would not be lost but could be rented out sensibly. I believe ownership is rarely a mistake, not meaning to praise my planning – it simply would not have been possible otherwise in this constellation.

Are you generally an advocate of laminate flooring in rental apartments? We could also get along with tiles. In the basement we will definitely go with laminate, but for the upper floor apartment we are not quite decided yet whether to go with tiles (wood look – a matter of taste) or just lay laminate. We have some industrial companies in the region that are always looking for space for workers. There is really enough light in the apartment until midday in summer, so I have no concerns that the apartment will be too dark.

Um, I don’t think there are such hard-and-fast rules or really exclusive reasons for or against it. Of course, you can lay laminate in the basement just as well as in the attic, although I wouldn’t want it that way myself. At least it feels colder in the basement and in my opinion tiles add to that. I really dislike tiles in wood look or any kind of fake-look building materials.

Our children are also welcome to live above us later & then move into the apartment via the staircase. Otherwise, it will just be rented out again.

Oh, yet another jack of all trades like just now in a parallel thread.

Wet rooms excluded, here tiles are unavoidable.

That is your valid opinion, but objectively I don’t see it that way. There are bathrooms with solid wood just as there are with carpet, everything is just a matter of design or individual use. Not true as a blanket statement.

thanks for your feedback. I am actually still new to the rental game, so I am very grateful for such tips. Are you generally an advocate of laminate flooring in rental apartments? We could also get along with tiles. In the basement we will definitely go with laminate, but for the upper floor apartment we are not quite decided yet whether to go with tiles (wood look – a matter of taste) or just lay laminate – wet rooms excluded, here tiles are unavoidable. We have some industrial companies in the region that are always looking for space for workers. There is really enough light in the apartment until midday in summer, so I have no concerns that the apartment will be too dark. We do not have a private entrance – access would then be possible via the staircase (visible stairs in the picture). We didn’t want to create a separate entrance precisely for reasons of potentially caused leaks.

Nevertheless, this also has its advantages which I would weigh carefully both for own use and especially when used by other people; then you inevitably already orient yourself in the floor plan according to the possible co-resident in the basement, since the staircase/foyer becomes a communal room and may be missing in private use.

A single-family house is out of the question for me for cost reasons.

I don’t understand that?

We now have 100 sqm & the only thing I’m missing is a reasonable dressing room and a storage room.

And just because of that you’re building the house? I’m confused right now.

Who can, can.

I already read this quote yesterday. Everyone here can do it, it’s just a question of personal flexibility. Adapting yourself again and again to the respective life situation is more appropriate than living with impractical things for a lifetime. Building already now for old age or the future seen in a crystal ball is probably much more expensive and less comfortable than a switch to the respective suitable living form. I would therefore rather place the quote “who can, can” where you already afford rooms or details for perhaps the day after tomorrow.

Yes, I just wanted to invest my money sensibly and then decided on a multi-family house with 12*10m external dimensions.

That alone does not make it sensible and there are many types and perspectives of sensible. I also keep reading “I want to do it properly,” which for me means that everything else would be unreasonable or nonsense. I would repeatedly question myself whether I only use that to justify my previously set-in-stone intention. If everything fits you like that then that’s great.

So we may still have a ground-floor apartment for my parents and a basement apartment for a potential carer.

Exactly this I read in a parallel thread and I really can’t help myself with such a large space offer: “Who has, has.”

Use-cases for living space are enough!

Sure, so you could have built even bigger and with even more apartments. Not at all, you build it according to your ideas and then it’s great like that, but these statements do not serve as general statements because you can see from the respective answers…

....and just for that reason you are building the house? I'm totally lost right now.

First of all, I have to praise the exchange here, even if it of course does not always correspond to what you want. But that is also not what I am looking for! I am looking for an exchange on an equal footing & corresponding conversations. The house is already standing, the two rooms I have compared to a single-family house, which naturally have the full floor plan area, not to the full extent and then I simply have to find alternatives. I built on parental land, so I did not have to buy the plot & I am also lucky that many relatives can currently support me, which brings savings. In 10 years this would no longer have been possible! In addition, it would not have been financially feasible without rental income. Yes, certainly I could have used the equity more sensibly or held on to it longer and then tackled the project later, but I live in the here and now. You always plan also to cover future eventualities, otherwise it would not be thought far enough. To say: "Yeah, now it no longer fits for us, we are building new" certainly makes sense at first glance, but also poses certain hurdles again. Then later better to terminate the tenants for personal use if necessary & possibly adjust the floor plan here and there.

Exactly this I read in a parallel thread and I just can't help myself with such a large room offering right now: "He who has, has".....

You can only build wide if the building plot allows it. We still have a second building plot adjoining, but combining them was never an option.