Hello,
Actually, we have been looking for an existing property since last summer. According to our mortgage broker, we have a budget of around 300,000 (all-in), which a bank is likely to approve.
The market here in Schleswig-Holstein has also become very tight, and the houses on offer are often in need of renovation, so you easily exceed the budget (especially since many city dwellers laugh at our house prices and like to secure a holiday home here).
Now the question is whether it would be possible to build a house within our budget (assuming we can get a building plot). Our requirements are not very high; it doesn’t need to be a huge house. 120 square meters (1300 square feet) would be completely sufficient.
In a neighboring village, plots are currently being developed. The price isn’t fixed yet but is expected to be below 100 euros per square meter. The plots are about 700 square meters (7500 square feet) in size. Unfortunately, we have no experience with this topic at all, and I definitely don’t want to miscalculate.
We can only contribute limited personal labor. We are not unskilled, but both fully employed with a child, dog, and horse. What are your thoughts?
Actually, we have been looking for an existing property since last summer. According to our mortgage broker, we have a budget of around 300,000 (all-in), which a bank is likely to approve.
The market here in Schleswig-Holstein has also become very tight, and the houses on offer are often in need of renovation, so you easily exceed the budget (especially since many city dwellers laugh at our house prices and like to secure a holiday home here).
Now the question is whether it would be possible to build a house within our budget (assuming we can get a building plot). Our requirements are not very high; it doesn’t need to be a huge house. 120 square meters (1300 square feet) would be completely sufficient.
In a neighboring village, plots are currently being developed. The price isn’t fixed yet but is expected to be below 100 euros per square meter. The plots are about 700 square meters (7500 square feet) in size. Unfortunately, we have no experience with this topic at all, and I definitely don’t want to miscalculate.
We can only contribute limited personal labor. We are not unskilled, but both fully employed with a child, dog, and horse. What are your thoughts?
N
nordanney8 Apr 2021 14:13Olli-Ka schrieb:
Hello,
it’s good that we are finally moving out of NRW — just 6 weeks left 😀 People elsewhere also only cook with water 😉. By the way, a city from NRW once won the title of “most livable city in the world” and is still regularly ranking among the top cities in Germany today.
askforafriend8 Apr 2021 14:27nordanney schrieb:
Somewhere else, they also just cook with water 😉.That may be true, but in Bavaria the water tastes better 😀
SumsumBiene schrieb:
We don’t want it to be especially large anyway. 100 to 120 sqm (1,080 to 1,290 sq ft) is enough for us. We currently live in 75 sqm (810 sq ft) with a 25 sqm (270 sq ft) garden plus a terrace... and annoying neighbors.
We would like four rooms and an extra guest bathroom would be great.
Our equity is not very significant. We have 20,000 now. Then there are another 12,000 in the Riester account, which could be used if necessary. We are currently saving about 1,000 per month. A bit more comes together over time.
We also have a large circle of friends and acquaintances who could probably help out with some things now and then. Of course, we would also want to pay them... so some of the equity would need to be held back for that. We had a similar amount of equity, a bit more but not much.
The problem with holding some back is that banks usually prefer to finance only the house itself, not the additional costs. That means even with 100% financing, it’s ideal to have the extra costs covered upfront. That could just about work for you (if your additional costs are similarly low as ours in Lower Saxony).
We also struggled with the kitchen. We had to use most of our equity for the extra costs, so there wasn’t much left for the kitchen. We managed to save and scrape together the money for it during the construction phase. We sold everything we didn’t need through classifieds. 😀
By the way, I recommend this – people underestimate how much cash you can raise that way, plus it reduces your moving volume. It’s easier to settle into a new place with lighter luggage. But at 75 sqm (810 sq ft), you probably don’t have many unused treasures anyway. Still worth considering.
If you can get friends and acquaintances involved in flooring and painting work, that would probably save a lot. We had quotes from the general contractor of about 10,000 for flooring and 14,000 for painting. We had the flooring done professionally; it looks great. Painting was too expensive for us, so we did it ourselves with reduced requirements and hired a cheap specialist company for about 5,000. That saved us the money we needed for the paving work, but now the walls show it a bit. 😀
It has, uh, country house charm. 🙂
N
nordanney8 Apr 2021 15:01askforafriend schrieb:
That might be true, but the water tastes better in Bavaria.I prefer to stay where German is spoken. Living in Bavaria feels like moving abroad...