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?
SumsumBiene8 Apr 2021 15:20kati1337 schrieb:
We had a similar amount of equity, a bit more but not by much.
The issue with holding back funds is that the bank usually only finances the house, not the additional costs. That means even with 100% financing, ideally you should have the extra costs covered. That might just work for you (if your secondary costs are similarly low as ours were in Lower Saxony).
We also struggled with the kitchen. We had to use most of our equity for the additional costs, leaving not much left for the kitchen. We saved and scraped together the kitchen expenses over the course of the construction phase. Everything we no longer needed was sold cheaply through classified ads. 😀
I actually recommend that – people underestimate how much cash you can gather this way, plus it reduces your moving volume. It’s easier living with lighter baggage. But on 75m² (800 sq ft) you probably don’t have that many unused treasures anyway. Still worth a look.
If you can get friends and acquaintances involved with the flooring and painting work, that would probably save a lot. We had offers from the general contractor for flooring ($10,000) and painting ($14,000). We had them do the flooring, and it looks great. Painting was too expensive for us, so we did it ourselves and hired an affordable specialized company with simplified requirements, paying around $5,000. That saved us the money we needed for paving work, but well, that’s how our walls look now. 😀
It has, uh, countryside charm. 🙂Countryside charm sounds good.
I would consider buying a used kitchen if it fits and is of good quality. A friend who does all kinds of house-related work has refurbished kitchens over the last few years that were only 3 years old and cost $25,000. But of course, you can’t really plan for that. My husband can’t imagine it, but I guess it will come up if we run into problems (which we hope not).
We plan to do flooring and painting ourselves. That should be doable.
P
pagoni20208 Apr 2021 15:26SumsumBiene schrieb:
My husband, on the other hand, can’t really imagine that. Maybe you should take a closer look at it. Often there are scary images in people’s minds of greasy, dirty kitchens, but if you do some research and take your time, combined with a bit of imagination, you can achieve great results. A kitchen doesn’t always have to be fully integrated; you can also design it with individual furniture pieces or a freestanding refrigerator, a counter, or similar elements if needed.
In that case, I would only recommend looking for truly high-quality kitchen furniture.
Yes, you can save a lot of money with a used kitchen. Often, a kitchen that wasn’t designed specifically for a particular space won’t fit perfectly down to the millimeter (inch). But with a bit of creativity, you can usually find solutions for this.
Like-new kitchens are often incredibly affordable on the secondhand market. And not everyone treats their kitchen poorly—probably quite the opposite in most cases.
Like-new kitchens are often incredibly affordable on the secondhand market. And not everyone treats their kitchen poorly—probably quite the opposite in most cases.
pagoni2020 schrieb:
In this case, I would exclusively look for truly high-quality kitchen cabinets.These are usually the two items that are not included in a turnkey package, so there’s no saving there.W
Worrier848 Apr 2021 16:57If you can save a lot of money anywhere, it’s on furniture. My entire apartment (except for the bed) is from eBay Classifieds. Van rental and off we go. People have too much money 🙂.
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pagoni20208 Apr 2021 16:57Zaba12 schrieb:
These are usually the two items that are not included in turnkey contracts anyway, so no savings there. Yes, I understand, but the kitchen was explicitly mentioned by the original poster here as an upcoming expense, and that she hasn’t quite agreed with her husband yet because of the kitchen.
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