Variable loan possible / sensible?

So first of all, I don't understand why you are calculating with 3-4% interest for the loan? Our interest rates were below 1%!

. Moreover, there have been many major purchases recently like a stroller for 1500€

And that's exactly why it will be difficult or even impossible for you! My sister-in-law is a well-paid doctor with her own practice (also heavily pregnant) and bought her stroller from a friend for 200€. But living like that is just not your world. For us, it's simply a mindset and it’s not just about the money, but also about conserving resources. We also only have a small car and even there it’s not primarily about the money, but we do most things by bike anyway for environmental reasons.

For you I only see the options to significantly increase your income or to skip building the house. With under 5k net you cannot live this lifestyle and still build a house.

I still don’t understand why you only worked part-time. That would have been another 1000€/month and 12,000€/year that you would have now. But maybe it has to do with self-employment, then it is understandable again.

Oh come on, stay relaxed. Your list is quite promising:
Man: 900€ left
Woman: 500€ left (calculated on parental allowance time)
Self-employment: 300-500€ left

We're almost at the 2000€ per month saving rate.

It's the "small" expenses in between that eat you up: a 1500€ stroller is quite a statement and the "reality check" for me that there really are people who buy such things. I find it crazy, but totally okay if that's important to you. Everyone has their priorities. (My stroller probably cost about 600€ and even that I found outrageously expensive.)

Under rent I really lived carefree. Pay and no worries. If something comes up now, it's usually immediately expensive. The house obliges after all

Oh yes, how true. Last week a child fell onto the open dishwasher door :(
In the rental apartment I still didn’t care at all how the kids dirtied and destroyed everything in no time, but now in the house every mark and scratch on the wall and floor annoys me.

In my opinion, this is where your problem lies. Your current mindset (attention, my opinion, and not meant to be judgmental) does not fit the topic of house building. No one certainly "has to" "sacrifice" here. Building a house is not a decision that is made "just like that," but a path that involves a somewhat longer-term maturation and preparation process. You can take this path – but you don’t have to. But then you mustn’t complain later if, at the end of the day, you end up empty-handed / "just" renting.

I don’t deny that ;) The idea of owning a house only came about relatively recently. Originally, I was thinking in terms of a condominium, and that’s how we started our search this year. But we quickly concluded that the properties currently offered on the market neither meet our requirements nor justify the asking prices. Specifically, an apartment over 100m2 in western Berlin or the western outskirts is hardly to be found, and if so, prices start at €450,000–500,000 and go upwards. So we turned to the topic of a house and after 3 months of active but unsuccessful searching, we found a plot of land that would really be a great stroke of luck to get. And we were able to reserve the plot without the usual waiting list until 2023. So yes, in this case, we either have to act quickly or give up.

So yes, in this case we either have to act quickly or give up.

The last chance to back out would be at the notarization appointment, when would that be at the latest if you deliberately take the whole matter slowly? Have you ever mentioned a date?

So first of all, I don’t understand why you’re calculating with 3-4% interest for the loan? Our interest rates were under 1%!



And that’s exactly why it will be difficult or even impossible for you! My sister-in-law is a well-paid doctor with her own practice (also heavily pregnant) and bought her stroller from a friend for 200€. But living like that is just not your world. For us, it’s simply a mindset and it’s not just about the money, but also about conserving resources. We also only have a small car and even then, it’s not primarily about money, but for environmental reasons most of the time we get around by bike.

For you, I only see the options of significantly increasing your income or giving up building the house. With less than 5k net, you can’t live this lifestyle and still build a house.

I still don’t understand why you only worked part-time. That would have been another 1000€/month and 12,000€/year that you would have now. But maybe that has to do with self-employment, then it’s understandable.

I worked part-time because I was actually professionally active on the side and got this “missing” 1000€ per month through my hobby/self-employment. In addition, I traveled a lot (also part of the self-employment), which would have been problematic with full-time work. For now, I’m not counting on income from my self-employment anymore; if it comes, that’s good, but in the last few months (since March) I’ve been at zero. I also have to say that in 2018-2019 I had very high unexpected expenses and had to bear high costs, much of which also came from the side activity. Now we have already set the right course, my husband has cleared his old debts, and from now on things will improve for us month by month. But based on our experience so far, it’s difficult to determine our actual savings potential because, as I said, until a few months ago we didn’t really think about it, let alone have a household budget. We only caught up on that retrospectively these past few days, and it shows that our expenses are decreasing despite the purchases for the baby.

To be even clearer: In my opinion, your current ratio of consumption to income does not align with the goal of managing a property purchase in the medium or even long term (whether a larger condominium, an existing single-family house, or new construction). You have already explained several times that you do not want/cannot significantly restrict your present lifestyle. As mentioned before, that is completely fine. But you need to be clear about this now and in the future.