Single-family house: Is the rate realistic? How much house can we afford?

Why not, by the time they retire, 9000 EUR will be the Hartz 4 rate or hopefully unconditional basic income...

When I see the price increases in energy costs, that could be possible

My 3 thirds are as follows:

Health
Family
Money

From experience, I can say that rarely do all three run excellently together.
And such a life is long. There are ups and downs. Relationship stress, money worries, worries about children, health limitations.
If the pressure from the bank also comes, you very quickly have chaos.

I have nothing against home financing. But then please within limits. One hundred thousand euros in reserve are worth almost nothing today.
But with a loan of, let's say, 500,000 euros, I would always want to have these 100k in reserve. That is more than healthy.

When some show up here with 20,000 euros equity. Pointless.

100,000 almost worthless? This is here 1/3 or more of a proper existing property. I wouldn't see that as almost nothing now. And you first have to have that much "left over"... We probably will never have that, or only in x years, when it really is worth almost nothing anymore.

Man, you immediately feel really poor. I really can’t keep up. I have 1400 net and a company car with fuel for private use. My wife still gets 1000 euros net. A little extra here and there and we don’t even have 3000 euros monthly income.

No matter, our house is paid off. No loan was needed for that. The Mercedes is also paid off. Although a bit older, but paid off. We can go on vacation, we also go out to eat sometimes and enjoy our big garden with a pool.

No, nothing inherited or received as a gift. All nicely self made.

We also save a lot every month and still have six-figure equity. Now we’re buying a nice motorhome and going a bit traveling.

Old wisdom. You don’t get rich from what you earn, but from what you don’t spend.

I don’t see why I should give up my financial freedom in my youth for the rest of my life with an income of 9000 euros. All paths are open to you then. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a loan of 700,000 euros for a house. Unless you’re Croesus!

And tomorrow Santa Claus is coming. What’s this crap actually supposed to be here? Marvenius is no better at all.

Phew, so I feel like things are getting a bit mixed up here. No one here ever talked about a €700,000 loan. Nor about "paying it off until retirement" or putting > 50% of the income into the house.

I just wanted to get some assessments on whether my thoughts about the monthly payment are okay. 2-3 people think €2,500 is way too much, but on the other hand not enough to even think about building. 1-2 people think I should just go for €3,000 right away. The vast majority thinks it might work out, but you should reconsider the priorities carefully.

That already gives me a very good picture – and since we still have to wait anyway, I’ll just keep everything in view for now and observe how income, equity, interest rates, construction development, delivery difficulties, etc. develop.

ONLY THEN will we see what we can actually achieve with our means. That we would like a more "interesting" house DOES NOT mean that we will be able to afford it. We are well aware of that. But that was never what this thread was about from the start.

Maybe put differently: We are not planning the house first and then seeing if we can afford it. We are first seeing what we can afford and simply want to make the most out of it.

With the hobby "espresso machines," I don't even want to know how the kitchen planning will turn out cost-wise....
The best thing is to buy a built-in espresso machine, then you can "skip" this hobby.
Bicycles, including e-bikes of good quality, easily reach >4000€ and thus more than the value of a used Opel. There was also a rule of thumb in the FAZ some time ago: You should invest 10% of the car’s value in the bike if it is a hobby mode of transportation. (I also stuck to that)
Home cinema requires a lot of space (drives up construction costs) and for high-end sound systems, the price range is wide open upward.

It's a pity that you obviously only pick parts of my posts as a starting point for your replies and do not address what I actually write about.

The kitchen doesn’t have to be super fancy – why should it? I never said that I need a mega kitchen. The equipment for the hobby "coffee" is already fully available. I even explicitly said that I don't have to make any further purchases there. Except for the beans – but I would need those with any other machine anyway?

Your suggestion to replace the machine with a built-in appliance (which then generates extra costs but is many times worse in result) is therefore... pointless, sorry.

The same goes for your comment regarding the bikes. Who’s talking about e-bikes? Who says we have to buy something new? Your rules of thumb are nice and all – but only apply if you want to buy something. We already have our bikes, and they run. And since it’s a hobby, I also maintain the things myself at low cost. So why should I care about any new prices for high-end e-bikes?

Home cinema: We do in fact already have a 5.1 system with a projector and screen. That is completely sufficient for us. We don’t need any further high-end sound system. It’s not always about "higher, better, further" but about enjoying what you have (and can afford). The current "home cinema" also doesn’t have a separate room but is integrated into the living room. I don’t see why you wouldn’t do the same in the house if you can plan accordingly beforehand. In other words: no extra space needed, no extra system required.

I also don’t tell someone who enjoys driving a car that they better shouldn’t build a house because a Ferrari costs so much that they couldn’t afford the house anymore – even though that person happily and contentedly drives a Skoda Octavia?