Swabs in object position and initial questions

We are now basically in a village as close as possible to the metropolitan area, meaning in a green and quiet environment with optimal connection. The city would be a no-go for us, so the alternative would be to take one of the nearby villages. Of course, it becomes cheaper the further you move away from the metropolitan area, and the travel times correspondingly longer.

We paid €330 per sqm, ... With 15 to 20 minutes more travel time, the price would have practically halved to €150 per sqm. For a 500 sqm plot, that would be about €90,000.
We wouldn’t have wanted a larger plot, but the house would probably have been 10 to 20 sqm bigger there (now just over 150) and might have had one or two additional features. We set ourselves a somewhat fixed budget that we didn’t want to exceed, and the house size was the thing we could most easily give up personally. Every second of saved commuting time is priceless to us, just like quick access to cultural offerings and restaurants without having to give up a location in the green.

Big city: We know our neighbors, we live quite green (looking out the back onto a park = unobstructed view of greenery) and relatively quiet because it's the outskirts. In our building there is a warm sense of community, nothing here is hectic or anonymous and parking spots are (almost) always available^^. ..... The city center is only 15 minutes away by train, I also work there. ...

In the small town, the streetcar only runs every 20 minutes and the S-Bahn only every 30 minutes, that is a real adjustment. On Saturdays, everything closes at 4 p.m. at the latest. Sunday bakeries? Don’t exist. Meeting other children on playgrounds? Extremely rare. A daycare change to a larger daycare in the small town would be necessary. Specialized high schools are only in the city.

Objectively viewed, there is nothing against this small town.

Of course, the advantages are clear. Economically as well as for the children, the small town would be better.

That read a bit different to me in your first posts – first you write that the infrastructure is good and the small town would be better economically and for the kids, now you speak a bit worse of it and instead write about the advantages of your current suburb, which were withheld from us until your last post.

For a compromise, you have to be willing to also look at things objectively: when you talk about streetcar differences of 10 minutes, it’s a real adjustment for you. But honestly: where is the big problem in that? That’s a bit exaggerated.

just to be able to stay in the beloved city?

I have tried to make you understand that your beloved city remains.
Because if you follow your explanations about your current suburb, you do not live in the big city but in a suburb!
It’s like this: in the city center there's no housing like ours anyway, there are commercial and shopping streets. Around it are the city districts, and at the outskirts the suburbs, which still benefit from public transport, but are already more or less self-contained from the big city – nice and green, but with public transit.
And you say it yourself: the transitions are fluid. It’s only a 7 km difference now... Yes, 17 km from the center :rolleyes:
Usually, it’s even the case that one can get to the downtown faster via direct highway connections from the commuter belt than living in a suburb and using city streets.
But whatever...
.....

But we also can’t imagine living forever as renters and it just gets too expensive in the city. Paying off over 30 years would be an absolute horror for me.

Paying off over 20/30 years is a horror for you, but paying rent for 45 years is not?
I’d say: then stay in the situation you’re in now.
You have all the positives – you can do without ownership after all. Not everyone is cut out for owning property or a single-family home.
As you describe it, your life is good and it seems to me that you have an inner block against getting used to a new living situation outside the city limits – so it can remain like this? :)

Maybe you’ll realize at some point that you no longer use the advantages of the big city and it doesn’t matter whether it’s 10 or 17 KM... maybe the plot will still be buildable then :)

I think renting definitely has its advantages. You can move anytime, whether for professional reasons or because finances don’t allow otherwise. With a house and a loan, it’s usually different. As an alternative, we could also keep renting until the kids have moved out, meanwhile save money and then buy a condominium or a small house with our savings plus the filled building savings contract and the two residential Riester plans, which we might have paid off by retirement. As tenants, we would still need a family apartment for about 20 years, after that a nice three-room apartment would be enough for us, with a room for guests or the grandchildren later. So it would get cheaper again. But of course, at the end of the entire rental period we would probably still have paid more than a house would cost, even one in the city location—only that in the end we would be without property. So we will definitely buy property at some point. The only question is when.

The plot won’t be available for much longer if we don’t want to build on it. Otherwise, it will be sold together with the other plot because the parents-in-law want to buy a smaller retirement home in the city. For them, it has become too much ballast and work by now.

Yes, I think it makes a big difference in everyday life whether you can drive more often than every 10 minutes or only at most every 20 minutes (on weekends less often). We have already lived in the small town for about 2 years. Sure, it’s not a disaster. But what we have now is better, definitely. And you don’t want to worsen your situation. We—or rather, especially I—am really a big city person. I have already lived in 2 small towns. I always managed there. But I was always glad to be back in the city. My husband prefers the city too, but he could also go back to his hometown and manage well there.

As for the children... however you look at it, both have pros and cons. Also regarding things that do not concern the children. I myself grew up on the outskirts of the city and already back then thought we lived “far out.” But I could get everywhere on my own. From the riding club to downtown, school, tutoring, friends, later going out. I was always independent of my parents and had short distances. I could attend my specialized high schools without much extra effort. Sure, as children we didn’t have a garden. But we had a courtyard with the neighbors’ children. So I think everything can be interpreted as either an advantage or disadvantage. All in all, it can be said: The only truly real advantage of the small town from our point of view is the price. Everything else we have in the city outskirts just as well or better (except for the proximity to the parents-in-law; keyword childcare). For example, my parents are not poor but have consciously rented all their lives. I wouldn’t want to live closer to the center either because then the disadvantages of the big city would also become too annoying. There it really escalates into parking shortages, stress, noise, etc.

At the moment we tend to have 2-3 concrete offers made and then see further. But by now we believe we’d rather stay here where we are. I simply resist too much the idea of exchanging my city outskirts for the suburbs. And yes, 7 km in the city is a world of difference and means a significant loss of quality of life for me. Maybe Plan B (see above) is actually the better choice for us. In any case, I just don’t get a good feeling about the idea of moving to the small town permanently. No matter how much I consider the advantages.

I also don't think that we live like in a suburb. From our place, it's another 4 km until the "city" ends, but then the incorporated districts follow, which used to be the suburbs. These usually no longer have tram connections, or you really travel forever by train to get out there, provided these suburbs have a connection to the train or at least the bus. These are the kinds of "districts" that are actually suburbs in truth. But they would be too far out for me as well, even if they officially still belong to the city.

Everyone has their preferences. I like it when I go out with my dog and immediately (200m) am in the middle of nature. Every day I pass several horse paddocks and enjoy the peace and quiet. When I go to the city to shop, I am really glad when I am back in my car and can drive home. I can understand you just as well; you probably won't be happy in a small town if you're so attached to the city location.

Best regards
Sabine

Sounds very nice too! I know that from some friends and we have something like that as a family property on the Mecklenburg Lake District. Nothing but nature. Peace and quiet. Forests, lakes. You can walk through the forest for 3 hours without meeting a single person. Wonderful. But not for us all year round and every day. However, we go there several times a year to recharge with nature. For similar nature here, we would have to move quite far out, I estimate about 30km.