The usual question: How much house can we afford?

: What exactly do you mean by time horizon? The time until the planned house construction or until full repayment? Or something completely different?

When you want to start building. Interest rates are picking up again. That means that next year, the interest rate environment could look very different compared to today, with installments that are one and a half times as high as they are now.

How do you plan for that?

: A sick child of course makes any long-term planning difficult, not just building a house. I will take that and the other points into account, review the numbers again, discuss them with my wife, and then ask for your opinion once more. Thanks already to everyone for the input.

But if the child "simply" needs the mother now, then that is a reason for us not to work full-time, but not working at all after parental allowance ends with a healthy child would not be an option. Well, you never know what will come. I will calculate again what a single salary would mean for us.

: As soon as possible is best. The rising interest rates seriously worry me that it might not work out for me.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a suitable plot of land and in the newspaper or the online markets only end up what no one else wants. :-(
I’m already at the point where I sleep poorly because I see my dream of a house drifting into the distant future. But rushing to take the first affordable plot wouldn’t help either.

How about securing today's interest rate for yourself?

How is that supposed to work if we don't have any property or a contract for a house against which we can take out the loan? About a [Forwarddarlehen]? That is, for me, so far only an abstract term that Google has thrown up for me, I have no experience with it yet and didn't even know it existed until just now. But the idea sounds absolutely sensible!

A forward loan is an option. However, you should already know exactly what you plan to do and what it will ultimately cost.

A [Bausparkonto] that you can directly include in the financing when the time comes would be another option.

However, you also have to look at whether the additional interest that accrues for securing the interest rate in, for example, 3 years, ultimately pays off or how big the difference is. In addition, consider other factors as well.

1) Currently, you rent - the money is gone and you will never see it again. But if you move into your own house faster, you put the "rent" into your own house, basically into your own "pocket." With rent, you only fill your landlord's pocket; yours remains empty.

2) The costs for the house can also look completely different in a few years, just like the personnel/labor costs, etc. All things you have to invest in or buy for your house.

Take all this into account and consider it. Currently, there may seem to be an advantage or this may seem like a good solution, but who knows how the market and the cost structure will change in the coming years.

In my opinion, building a house is always associated with a bit of risk because you never know what will happen. But that is the case in life in general...

I always tell myself: "If you want one thing, you have to live with the other."