ᐅ Future Building Cost Trends Over the Next 3-5 Years

Steffen80 schrieb:

This idea is kind of... well... pornographic?

Creepy

Steffen80 schrieb:

It does have something magical about it.

Or apocalyptic.

The challenges of the future are not technological, but ethical and moral.
But as we all know, anything that is possible will eventually be done by someone, no matter how questionable it may be.

I’d like to briefly return to this topic:

Currently, costs are skyrocketing across all trades. In some cases, it’s absurd how little house you get for your money.

This development is, among other things, influenced by macroeconomic factors. Since the financial crisis, many investment opportunities have disappeared, or risk and return no longer align. Savings accounts no longer work at all, and central banks are flooding everything with money and low interest rates. This leads to increased investments in real estate as a safe asset.

This is the first aspect, which also carries the risk of bubbles forming. But on top of that, we now have immigration and a severe housing shortage in popular (mostly urban) areas. Therefore, building is necessary there, and the government will soon become heavily involved in construction. This will be intense.

The third factor is the lack of qualified workers for construction.

To summarize:
- The low-interest phase and money flooding into new concrete
- More housing is needed, meaning more concrete is required
- There is a shortage of people who can build all this

==> building will keep getting more expensive

guckuck2 schrieb:

I see this differently. Take the extreme example of Munich. There, buyers pay 35 to 40 times the annual rent for apartments. After deducting costs, the return is basically zero. At the same time, rents are already very high.

Have a look at the Wikipedia article on population development in Munich. The growth in recent years has been ridiculously low overall—sometimes 10,000 more, sometimes less. Contrary to the idea of an unstoppable influx to the city, that’s just not true.

Also check the past growth forecasts that were projected for 2015–2020. They predicted around 100,000 more people than currently live there. The expected influx did not happen on a significant scale.

Nevertheless, purchase prices are skyrocketing. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with an influx to the city but rather with the desire for investment opportunities, driven by cheap borrowed capital. I call this a bubble. Purchase prices no longer correspond to any reasonable real value.

Mobility, CO2, and working hours clearly point toward the countryside for me – less commuting, more flexible home office.

The service sector provides the high wages that allow people to afford city living. However, it is precisely in the service sector where physical presence is becoming less important. Office jobs can be done from home, and branches of insurance companies or banks require fewer people because customers handle their business from home.

I also work in the industry and believe that we are experiencing exciting times. However, as always, you have to be careful about which trend is being pushed at the moment. Everyone can spell digitalization, and some CSU nobody even becomes a Minister of State for this important issue, but above all, it is one thing: a sales argument. The budgets are huge, and some people are slowly losing their minds. The main thing is new, fancy, trendy, and fast. Sorry—agile, naturally. Because the steamroller is coming that will flatten everything. Whoever was a coach yesterday is today an agilist, scrum master, feel-good manager, or digital evangelist. Blah blah blah, all of this has happened before, nothing has ever been different. There is currently a (paywalled) article on faz.net titled “Digitalization does not exist” – at least the summary is quite true (I can’t read more).

Especially in the field of AI, I think far too much is being promised and announced publicly, more than what is already possible in reality.

Ten years ago, everything was supposed to go to India, then everything should come back, then everything to the cloud, and now back again. I really don’t fear unemployment as long as full-time number crunchers play bingo to earn their next annual bonus.

Quantum computers—that would be something. That really would be a new era.

I have a follow-up question: has the corresponding housing been built to allow the population increase? Or has housing construction stagnated? That would be my argument that prices are rising sharply because many want to live there (demand) and the city cannot keep up (supply). The main driver of price increases.

Bauherr am L schrieb:
I want to briefly return to this topic:

Right now, costs are skyrocketing across all trades. It's sometimes absurd how little house you get for your money.

However, this trend is not least influenced by macroeconomic factors. Since the financial crisis, many investment options have disappeared or no longer match risk and return. Savings accounts no longer work at all; central banks are flooding everything with money and low interest rates. This leads to increased investments in real estate.

This is the first connection, which alone carries the risk of bubbles forming. But now we also have immigration and a massive housing shortage in popular (mostly urban) areas. So building has to happen there, and the government is about to step in extensively to support construction. This will be huge.

The third factor is the lack of qualified workers to carry out the construction.

In summary:
- Low interest rate phase and excess money flow into new concrete.
- Housing is needed, meaning more concrete is required.
- There is a shortage of people who can build all this.

==> Building will continue to become more expensive

And then? Do you think the European Central Bank will choke off the economy with rising interest rates and cause an even deeper crisis? Probably not! Prices are rising disproportionately for land, especially in economically strong regions. That is also where the money is made. In rural areas, existing properties are easy to get. But very few want to commute.

What do you mean by "in the countryside"? The question is, at what point does commuting become too far? I usually consider a 15-minute commute, after that it gets very inconvenient.

Being a bit further away is usually not a problem. Traveling to the city is faster than traveling within or through the city.
I know many people who commute 1.5 hours each way by car.
The reason was not only the housing costs in the city but also the desire for greenery in the neighborhood and a more personal environment.
In some areas, this distance is still not far enough for the prices to become affordable.