Support in finding a personal pain threshold

Hello everyone,

my girlfriend and I have been a bit unsettled since our first introductory meeting with our architect regarding the height of the construction costs that might come our way. The amount he mentioned to us was well over €500,000. We definitely did not expect that!
Now we are trying to find out where our pain threshold might be?! Because naïvely(!) we hadn’t given that any thought beforehand.
For that, I would like to ask for your opinion/experience. What do you think, how much can we afford? What is realistic/feasible?

We are both employed and have permanent contracts. As equity, we currently have "only" a plot of land (approx. €100,000, Münsterland (NRW), no slope) and nearly €15,000 in savings. According to our calculation, we could currently spare just under €1,200 per month for loan repayment. The €1,200 is 30% of our fixed net income. Over the year, we can certainly save the odd euro here and there, so we might possibly benefit from an annual special repayment. But we don’t want to include that for now, because you never know what might happen. Ideally, the construction loan should be completely repaid after 30 years (+/- 5-6 years).

I think with the €540,000 the architect named to us, we would be way over our heads. But what do you think, what amount is achievable?

I’m grateful for any opinion/experience! :)
Regards

A rate of 1200 euros, a term of 30 years and an interest rate of 2% p.a. (assumption) results in a loan of 324,000 euros. At 1% p.a. it amounts to 374,000 euros.

The 540,000 euros were the pure construction costs or is the land value included?

540,000 € for the house and incidental construction costs (excluding the land) is substantial - what do you want to build?

The conversation was initially about what we would find desirable: 150 - 160 sqm of living space, single-family house (country house style, 1.5 stories, gable roof, with bay window (3rd gable), solid construction), fully basement and next to it a larger garage for one car. The building plot is about 700 sqm and as I understood the architect, he referred with his (rough) calculation to the pure construction costs...

As far as I remember, he calculated with 2000€/sqm as follows:
Living area: 160 sqm
Basement: 80 sqm
Garage: 30 sqm
---------------
270 sqm * 2000€/sqm = 540,000€

Hi,
Uhm... for 2000 euros / sqm you calculate the net living area, the basement is already included there. And the garage would cost 60k€ at that rate, does he want to cover it with gold leaf?

He should be able to build 160 sqm with basement for 320 to 350 k€, plus another 20-40 k€ for the garage. So around 400 k€ for everything plus incidental construction costs should be fine, if you don’t have very exclusive wishes.

Best regards,

Andreas