ᐅ Is the construction boom still ongoing?

Also, a one-man operation does not automatically mean undeclared work...

From a craftsman’s perspective: In my experience, when dependencies arise from working together on one person's project, "no one" could manage a large project alone. Much of the collaboration developed out of pure necessity. That’s why no one really questioned whether they wanted to do it. In the rural south of Germany, we brought our toddlers along; for a small child with allergies, we carried a dairy goat for the bottles since there was no electricity anyway. By the way, those were the best-tolerated bottles of all! The elder family members of the builders couldn’t bend down easily anymore but had the goat and brought some snacks. It was fun, everyone was involved, this was 40 years ago, and we are still friends today. Of course, if everyone has everything themselves, there’s no need to ask anyone for help. But when it’s necessary, different behaviors develop. That wasn’t worse!

Joedreck schrieb:

Whether you have the chance to get help from many friends who are tradespeople really depends. I assume many people today don’t live where they grew up. As a result, they rarely have friends in the trades who are regularly available.

That’s exactly what I suspected in some thread before. You move to city X for university, then eventually start a family, and the apartment becomes too small. Owning a house or even just living comfortably there is hardly affordable, so you move further out. The friends from university are all theoreticians and definitely not motivated to spend weeks working physically on a construction site. Another factor is travel times. During the one week I worked on the house myself, I spent over 10 hours in the car just commuting to and from the site. That was on top of workdays exceeding 10 hours. After that week, I was glad we weren’t painting or laying floors ourselves, because that is absolutely not family-friendly. After moving in, the gardening is done by ourselves, but since we live on site, we can simply spend another 1–2 hours after dinner working there.

Tolentino schrieb:

Besides, a one man show doesn’t automatically mean undeclared work...

Of course not! I didn’t imply that connection either.
The point was just about the argument that the money goes to the boss and not the workers. In a one man show, it’s the same person.

kati1337 schrieb:

My parents also financed at 9% and they weren’t exactly wealthy. But that was a different time. In the village, everyone knew people who could help; a lot of work was done by themselves. Back then, the construction itself was technically less demanding in my opinion. And there was no occupational accident insurance fund contacting everyone involved on site. 😀 On Saturdays, a whole group of private helpers from friends and family would be fed, and in return, you basically built at material cost.
My mom recently said that with the way we build now (general contractor, large loans), they wouldn’t have been able to afford to build back then. The incomes didn’t allow for it. I think it’s really hard to compare that independently of interest rates.

I believe that’s the key point: expectations keep rising and people want to do as little themselves as possible. Plus, there are more consumer desires like iPhones and vacations three times a year. That wouldn’t have been possible back then either. I actually wonder whether construction costs have really increased that much compared to income, or if we’ve just become a bunch of spoiled brats who are now being brought back down to earth.

By the way, I haven’t been hearing much on this topic lately. But we’re currently right in the middle of renovations and have tradespeople working here—so it’s stressful! ;-)

Tolentino schrieb:

Also, a one-man operation doesn’t automatically mean undeclared work...

I have a little anecdote on this topic. After our unsuccessful move, we were looking for someone to take care of the remaining work. First, we talked to a German guy who initially complained about the tax office shutting down his business because he couldn’t pay his taxes. Then he launched into an extremely racist rant about “those foreign people,” and said he could use the N-word for a person of color because apparently they didn’t mind. He insisted on being paid entirely in cash.
The second candidate for the job (who ended up doing the work) was one of those - in his words - "bad foreigners." At the end of the job, he gave me a receipt. I quote him from memory: “I only do everything officially with an invoice. I’m not going to mess with the tax office. I’m not crazy.”
Well. 🙂