Well, that’s complete nonsense now. No one here is talking about speculation that the value of the house will double, but about whether the house loses value with normal maintenance and care. I have supported this with a real example from my experience [...]
Yes – and when I look at your example for 3 minutes from a professional point of view, I see 10 points where the examples are not comparable or your basic claim is not correct.
That’s not a problem, laypeople have every right to have no idea. But this is not about opinions, it’s about valuation. Valuation is indeed influenced by opinions and interpretations – but you can’t turn a workhorse into a racehorse. And Besperde is simply a workhorse, you can tell that just by looking at the standard land value.
and I’m still of the opinion that you can’t generally say that a house there “loses a lot of value” and that it’s only suitable to “live it down.” You are certainly right that a house in a small village is probably not a “value appreciation object,” but that’s not what it’s supposed to be in my understanding!
It’s not about opinion. If the maximum standard land value in the town is €80, then there are reasons for that. There is a current thread here in the forum where a prospective buyer wants to offer €1300/m² for a building plot, but expects not to get it for under €1400/m². Do you seriously want to discuss whether these two comparable values represent different demand levels?
My father bought his building plot 30 years ago for 34 DM/m², I paid €86/m² in the same village now. Just as building land costs more and is worth more today, property prices here in the village have also developed upwards.
Let’s assume that is actually the case (although I would have 10 immediate questions about your example that you won’t be able to answer on the spot, so your statement is not supported), then that’s the development … for YOU. That says absolutely nothing about the development in Besperde, as long as one doesn’t even know where your house or your father’s house is located!?
Basically, a house on the market here today for €400,000 is nothing special, but I strongly doubt that these houses cost 800,000 DM to build 30 years ago.
Which is nonsense anyway, because the houses 30 years ago would have had to be worth €400,000 / 1.025^30 = about €200,000, which corresponds to about 400,000 DM. Maintenance/depreciation through wear and tear also doesn’t seem to exist with you – so you have to ask how much should have been invested in a 400,000
DM house in the last 30 years for it to be worth €400,000 today?
Of course, that all varies regionally.
Correct. What is (almost) not regionally different, however, is a standard land value of €80. €80 is a (upmarket) village. Period. End of story.
You will not find a spot in Germany where you can buy a building plot in a pure residential area for detached single-family houses for €80 – and at the same time have a street-/S-Bahn connection within walking distance.
My better half comes from the new federal states and some villages there are almost dying out, and the houses that were expensively built 30 years ago are sometimes worth nothing today. I don’t know the TE’s area but assume that isn’t the case near Gießen.
What is shocking about this is only that you obviously know the procedure but exclude the risk for Besperde. That is negligent – the scenario you know from the new federal states is definitely real for Besperde. I have no idea how one can ignore that!? If Besperde cannot keep pace with other communities/places in the area, then the town will die permanently – how else do you explain that there is a development area with freshly developed plots
that haven’t been sold for several
years (!!!)?
In my opinion, the decision whether a village or not also depends on what kind of house you want to build. The higher-priced the house, the harder it will be in the future to find someone who wants to pay that price. That is certainly easier in the city. If you build a normal standard, I assume that with normal development the house will not lose value either.
If you built a normal standard 30 years ago in the “wrong” place, you are already ruined today or limited to living it down yourself – even in the “West.” There are developments that were built 30-40 years ago and today there is a ghost town with empty houses.
You have to keep that in mind and communicate it, even if it hurts – the TE is asking an absolutely legitimate question, namely about the retention of value of a possible plot in the location mentioned. To answer that you can nicely build there for €400,000 and that in 30 years you can most certainly or very likely expect “double” (less inflation) in value retention (!) is …
… simply put: Nonsense.
Anyone buying a building plot in Besperde these days has to want to live there or have/realize a special strategic location advantage. Anyone who only aims for value retention there is wrong. Value appreciation is simply a risky gamble.
Best regards
Dirk Grafe