New construction costs - Is the financing in order? Experiences?

I don't want to start a childish discussion now, but I find it absurd to park a one-year-old child who has just taken their first steps for 30-40 hours a week in a daycare. Children like to sleep 12-13 hours at night, which means the child is in daycare 50% of their time. Of course, the child is not doing badly there, but I also don't buy a dog only to leave it in a dog boarding facility again.

Children also like to sleep 2-3 hours during the day. Our net care time for the one-year-old in daycare was anyway only in the morning. After lunch there was a long nap, then I picked him up. It went like that for 2 years.

All this just so that one can afford a home of their own.

There are many other reasons for that. It's not for nothing that children have a legal entitlement to a daycare place, regardless of what the parents do or want to do. And that starting at 1 year old.

Children want time with their parents

Says who? Actually, from an evolutionary perspective, it is much closer to our nature to spend time with various caregivers. I believe our cave ancestors rarely just sat in their single-family cave as a trio. Social interaction was the order of the day, from day zero on. We recently moved because, in my opinion, we had a too one-sided care situation for our child. Long distance to extended family + Corona led to our son exactly having what you say children want – time with the parents. But for my taste, way too much of it. I like spending time with my son, but I don’t think it's good if he has only mom & dad around him for months (during the lockdowns). We now live closer to family, and I can already see after a quarter of a year that the child is literally flourishing because of it. He loves his grandma. He loves his cousin. He constantly wants to go visit there. And he loves his new kindergarten; he has shining eyes in the morning when he goes there. Even things like language development have improved significantly since he has a broader network here.

So those should be my 2 cents on the topic now – although I think it fits quite well into the thread. The child situation later is part of the OP's decision anyway.

It's not only the children who benefit from it; especially educated women with good jobs do not want to stay at home for years just changing diapers. In the end, the issue will also depend on the available care; a legal entitlement is all well and good, but in practice, almost all communities have more children than places, and childminders are also being overwhelmed.

I hardly see any families managing that with 2 full-time jobs. At least not the first 5 years. Sad but true...

I find it rather sad that this is seen as a necessity. Sometimes I wish for the much-maligned old days when it was enough if one person worked full-time.

So those are supposed to be my 2 cents on the topic now - although I think it actually fits quite well into the thread. The children's situation later is part of the OP's decision.

My children also like playing with friends, enjoy going to grandma's, etc. Both of my children started going to daycare at 2.5 years old in the mornings and loved it. This was not about isolating the child at home but rather about the OP calculating 3-6 months of parental leave and then full-time work for both parents to afford their own home. I consider full-day care (i.e., 30-40 hours per week - not just 4 hours in the morning) for children under 2-3 years old not desirable and would therefore not include this in my financial planning for the new house. If there is no other way financially, then so be it, but when I see that the OP is moving from a 600€ apartment to a house with a 2,300€ monthly payment and is accepting that his children will be cared for full-time by strangers from the age of 6 months, I see a moral problem there.

But is this really a danger here? The OP also has a not insignificant amount of reserves in the portfolio (even though the values are probably not looking great right now). In the best case, it stays there and continues to grow until retirement. In the worst case, it could be liquidated to bridge an extended break even after parental allowance. And calculating everything as if the partner will never earn money again in life seems a bit far-fetched to me.

Ultimately, one could also "buy" a lower installment currently. E.g. (not that I would recommend it) if you use 100k more and, for simplicity, keep the same interest and repayment rate, that would be 450€ less monthly installment. Practically, the interest would probably be at least somewhat lower, and then you are back to the point where you consider "shouldn't we repay a bit more after all?!". But the possibility would exist in theory.

But basically, through income and equity, the OP has the ability to buy flexibility here and there. Whether they now use it to keep more money outside the home equity (which can cover many unexpected situations) or use it to reduce the installment and take on less debt... just the fact that this can be discussed makes me feel that "there is enough leeway."

And if married, there is also the tax allowance, which can increase the net income of the full-time worker by €500 per month (~10k from the homemaker and 5k from the child at a 40% tax rate = €6k per year)