Report: Building a house as retirement provision? No way!

Chand1986 if you make the grandma comparison then life in other areas must also be adjusted to grandma time. Garden that in summer almost completely fed the family Canning for the winter Meat once a week Cooking regional and seasonal - back then the bell pepper was something special Coffee not all day in abundance, beans were expensive Skye, Netflix, cell phones did not exist Children's clothes were folded, shortened, patched and passed on Vacation - there was none or very rarely etc.

Just wait long enough, then the tiles in the bathroom will eventually become modern again at my grandma's there are still the bathrooms from the 60s, they are in great shape.

Chand1986 if you make the grandma comparison, then life in other areas also has to be adjusted to grandma time.

You are right. But:

Garden that almost completely fed the family in summer
Preserving food for the winter

That was not the case with my grandparents here in the Ruhr area. With the one salary of the "hut" (both grandfathers at Thyssen) they were already able to afford a little house in Duisburg, but nothing with a big garden or so. There was a community garden as a hobby. They already shopped at the supermarket. A house on just one salary was still possible.

Meat once a week

Not true.

Children’s clothes were turned up, shortened, patched, and passed on

True.

Vacation – there was none or very rarely

Not true.

Skype, Netflix, mobile phones did not exist

True.

You must not simply attribute a romantic modesty to the old times now. Life was lived on a smaller scale, but only because many things simply did not exist yet. And summer self-suppliers who never went on vacation and barely ate meat were by no means the generation of my grandparents. The thing with the house still worked.

With only one worker’s salary today, it is unthinkable to provide/buy a single-family house for one’s family!

The average(!) income of a full-time job in West Germany today is about 2100€ net. Much less in the East. How far do you get with that?

It is simply the case that, alongside all price increases (higher requirements, more demands on technology), the salary development of very many people has for decades not kept pace with growth + inflation. That houses are so expensive today is due to both. "Expensive" is a relative term that must be put into relation to income.

And no, not everything was better in the past.

I admire my grandma
I don't want to live like that.

Chand
My grandfather had worked in a carpentry shop and managed the community treasury on the side. In addition, my grandparents had their own farm. Sausage was available regularly, meat was rare. I can imagine that your grandfather earned more at Thyssen.

My uncle came here from Cologne in the early 70s. That was a culture shock. Everything so poor, so behind the times.
There was simply still a difference. My grandparents could only afford a vacation in the 80s.

Is the average calculated based on full-time employees or are all part-time employees with tax class 5 included as well? Just out of curiosity. There's also something about an average gross of 3.xxx euros.

You ask why? Because that was modern 20 years ago. This is not my mother-in-law’s bathroom, but it looks very similar.

Of course, you can do everything in there just like 19 years ago, but... wouldn’t you have the urge to renovate immediately given that condition?

I would.

If I buy a used property and want to move in, I would renovate the bathroom. If I live in the house and that is the bathroom I wanted 20 years ago, I wouldn’t do anything. With a lot of money saved up, I might possibly make the shower as flat as possible.