Will construction material prices increase? Customs madness?

And to stick with this dull choice of words, I want to say: "What you are reproachfully whining about today in a general way, the Boomer generation handled during their lunch break with a stale filter coffee and a Gauloises in hand."

How well that worked out can be seen from the current problems in the country. Infrastructure, healthcare system, armed forces, and pension system are just three of the major issues that have been known for decades and have never really been addressed. They always just "tinkered with the symptoms holding a stale filter coffee and a Gauloises in hand," but never really solved the problems.

To be honest, I am shocked how a decades-long systemic failure is still being celebrated here with such an absolutely stupid remark.

Oh dear...@etti, I’ll quote myself from it...

(Please try to understand the thought behind it.). It’s hardly possible to have a constructive discussion with categorizers and people who think in boxes.

If you have to explain a joke, it just doesn’t get any easier, and without mentioning the respective context, everything can be and is deliberately misunderstood, so that one can then successfully get upset again. Try reading (exactly) and understanding again before you hit the ceiling, that might help

Maybe he will also bring peace to Ukraine and the subsequent reconstruction there will cause problems for us?

That could actually become very interesting for construction prices. Not only because of competition from the "Aufbau Ost" (Eastern reconstruction), but especially with regard to the shortage of skilled workers (in Germany, unskilled laborers). Many Ukrainians are still relieving the labor market westward from Poland.

If that reverses, I am curious.

The problem in Germany is that a lot is sold/priced based on "feeling" rather than realistic costs, only to be further hawked with completely utopian discounts. (The 20% off everything except pet food only elicited a tired smile from any connoisseur). Whether it's heat pumps, insulation materials, HVAC, etc. etc. Especially in the multi-stage distribution channel, far too many want to earn money on the same product. Construction could become cheaper immediately if this bad practice were abolished. But the market has to fix that...

I believe it won't take that long anymore, as long as the gap between people's incomes and the prices in the construction industry continues to widen. There is still a lot of money in the market, but not with everyone.
There is already the idea of having the plumber install self-procured components more often. Currently, this is still frequently rejected. Either the willingness of trained workers will increase, or people will start installing more themselves again. Installing a heat pump as a monoblock is not rocket science, especially not with compression fittings. One can acquire the knowledge for this quite well.
Or air conditioning systems. The quick connect devices also connect quickly.
I suspect that a significant part of the population will (have to) move back in the direction of "do-it-yourselfers."

We especially need to get back down to earth. The era of 0,... % interest rates is over. This means that the size of houses must also be scaled back to a normal level again, 180 sqm, just because your buddy has 160, that all just doesn’t work that easily anymore. Right down to the finished turf. (see also the parallel thread). 120 sqm works too, you might hardly believe it. In times of cheap money, semi-detached houses were almost dead, and municipalities also need to stop prescribing minimum sizes for semi-detached houses when even in the smallest village land prices of 350 euros/sqm (plus additional costs) are demanded. Eventually, only the wealthy Berliner will come to build their second home, which is not desired either.