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

YouTube search -> "NIO ES8, a Chinese SUV with 644 hp, 840 Nm for €53,000 and AI companion"... the German automotive industry is heading full speed towards a dead end. How can anyone be so foolish... unbelievable...

guckuck2 schrieb:

It hasn’t always been like this. And it used to work.

Even though I’m somewhat pessimistic in the short to medium term (but that’s really complaining at a very high level!), I still believe that adaptability in this country has been proven. You can rely on that. Things will somehow keep moving forward.

And I want to stress again the high standard at which the complaints are made. We have the time and money to focus on issues that are often far from being existentially necessary.

On the other hand, I can’t understand the disbelief in a bubble bursting in major cities. The current dominant themes—environment, technological progress, and migration—point exactly in the opposite direction: out of the city.

That might have been true 20 or 30 years ago. In the era of massive companies like Alphabet, Amazon, etc., with virtually unlimited resources in terms of money and IT workforce—and moving full speed toward truly efficient machine learning, possibly combined with real quantum computing—you can "cut everything off." This is not just about the dying automotive industry; about two-thirds of service jobs will no longer be needed. Lawyers, medical diagnosticians, programmers, bankers, consultants (tax, etc.), and many more.

Take some time to study this topic—I do it professionally—and I can tell you: we are facing upheavals that will be more intense than industrialization. The only question left is: with what outcome?

Joedreck schrieb:

I don’t think there is a bubble in cities. Issues like mobility, CO2 taxes, and flexible working hours will continue to drive people toward urban areas.

I see it differently. Take Munich as an extreme example. There, people pay the equivalent of 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 Munich’s population development. The growth over recent years is overall laughably small. Sometimes 10,000 more, sometimes less. So much for an unstoppable influx into the city! That’s simply not true.
Also look at the past growth forecasts for 2015-2020. Back then, they expected an increase of around 100,000 people, which did not materialize. The anticipated influx did not happen to a significant degree.
Nevertheless, purchase prices are skyrocketing. This has nothing to do with an influx into the city but, in my opinion, with the desire for investment options driven by cheap debt. That’s what I call a bubble. The purchase price no longer corresponds to any reasonable real value.

Mobility, CO2 regulations, and working hours clearly point to more people moving to rural areas—for less commuting and more flexible remote work.
The service sector provides high wages, enabling people to afford city living. However, it is precisely in the service sector where physical presence is becoming less important. Office jobs are done from home, and branches of banks or insurance companies require fewer employees because customers handle their business remotely.

Steffen80 schrieb:

…and with full speed toward truly efficient machine learning, maybe combined with real quantum computing, you can “cut everything down.”

I also work in the industry and believe we are indeed experiencing exciting times. However, as always, you have to be careful about which hype is currently being pushed. Everyone can spell digitalization, and some clueless politician from CSU even becomes a minister for this important issue, but above all, it is one thing: a sales pitch. The budgets are huge; some people are slowly forgetting to think. The main thing is new, fancy, trendy, and fast. Sorry, agile, of course. Because the steamroller is coming that will flatten everything. Those who were coaches in the past are now agilists, Scrum Masters, Feel Good Managers, digital evangelists. Blah, blah, it has all been there before, and it has always been the same. There is currently a (paid) article on faz.net titled "Digitalization does not exist"—at least the summary contains some truth (I cannot read more).
Especially in AI, I believe too much is publicly promised and announced compared to what is actually possible.
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 the next annual bonus.

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

Help!!! @Steffen80 I’m also currently being trained internally as an IT specialist! Things are looking promising for me.

guckuck2 schrieb:

Especially in the field of AI, I believe there is a lot of public hype and overpromising compared to what is actually possible.

That’s why I specifically referred to machine learning. AI is largely just PR hype... true AI doesn’t really exist yet, and I don’t see it happening within the next few decades (or even centuries). Quantum computing seems more realistic to me (at least it works to some extent in laboratories) and even faster than true AI. Real AI (combined with quantum computing) should be able to independently drive further development. This idea is somewhat… well… like a fantasy? Something like a medical cure for cancer might then be just “a few clicks away.” But other extremes would probably exist too — for example, trading stocks as we know it might no longer be possible because exact prices could be “predicted” in advance. Yes, it almost feels like magic.

Steffen80 schrieb:

YouTube search -> "NIO ES8, a China SUV with 644 hp, 840 Nm (620 lb-ft) for €53,000 and AI assistant"...the German automotive industry is heading for a crash at full speed. How can anyone be so foolish...unbelievable...

You can't really buy that here, right? And even if you could, the vehicle would have to prove itself first. But in general, you shouldn’t underestimate the Chinese in e-mobility; it will be tough for the local market players...

Otherwise, digitalization will still change a lot, not all for the better. I wouldn’t need all of it; I’d rather stay in the "analog" age.