Real estate prices are rising again significantly. However, in seven federal states, buyers can still find relatively cheap properties suitable for families.
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Averages reveal a lot, but of course not everything. Two things can be clearly seen from the current data on the real estate market: firstly, buyers currently have to pay a good 360,000 euros for a normal single-family home. To be precise, 361,000 euros is the current median house price. This means that every second house sold in this country cost less in May, while the other half were above this price threshold.
And secondly: In October, the median was still 350,000 euros. Since then, prices have been rising again. This is shown by data from the Europace platform, which is backed by the real estate financiers Hypoport and Dr. Klein.
So what do you get for this price? A single-family home with a living space of around 124 square meters and 420 square meters of land, built in 1981. These are also the current averages. But since everyone knows how much the prices differ between Garmisch and Buxtehude, Gelsenkirchen and Berlin, the question naturally arises: How much money do buyers actually have to spend if they want to own a family-friendly home?
Lower Saxony also still has affordable property prices
In many regions it is not as much as one might think, the real estate platform Immoscout recently determined: In three federal states, the average price is even less than 300,000 euros, namely Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia. There, the average price (not the median, but in this case the arithmetic mean, which is distorted somewhat more by outliers) is still around 2,150 euros per square meter. For a 120-square-meter house, that corresponds to 266,600 euros, and for 140 square meters it is 298,600 euros.
In Saxony, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the price per square meter is also quite reasonable, at 2,300 to 2,650 euros. Here, too, an average home costs around 370,000 euros. In Brandenburg, you have to calculate around 400,000 euros for this, with a price per square meter of 2,900 euros.
In seven out of 15 federal states, it is still reasonably easy to finance a single-family home. Based on the following data: A loan of 300,000 euros is taken out to buy the house, at a current interest rate of 3.65 percent with a 15-year fixed interest rate. With an initial repayment of three percent, this means an instalment of 1,642 euros and a remaining debt of 121,000 euros at the end of the fixed interest rate period. It takes around 22 years for the loan to be fully repaid. If you choose the two percent initial repayment instead, you only pay a monthly instalment of 1,392 euros, but you still have 181,000 euros in remaining debt and it will take around 29 years to be debt-free.
In many federal states, half a million euros are needed
Buyers in the other federal states, however, have to spend more money. In Rhineland-Palatinate, Bremen and Schleswig-Holstein, the purchase price for the average house is still between 430,000 and 480,000 euros. In the other federal states, however, it is already over 500,000 euros. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse, for example, prices per square meter are currently 3,700 euros. House buyers in Bavaria pay a good 600,000 euros, although the gap between the cheaper north and the expensive south is particularly large. Around Munich, you should expect to pay twice that amount.
In Berlin, single-family homes are relatively expensive at 672,000 euros, but of the federal states, the city state of Hamburg is clearly the most expensive: on average, 756,000 euros are needed here. Buyers in Hamburg and Bremen in particular should not hesitate too long. This is because the price reductions are still the greatest here compared to the peak of the real estate market. This means that you can still negotiate discounts. However, this will not last forever, as prices are rising noticeably in all federal states. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Thuringia and Saxony, they have already risen sharply again.
Better not wait until interest rates fall further
But what if you don’t have the necessary equity for average financing? So the 100,000 euros to only have to take out a loan of 300,000 euros? Is it worth waiting until the central banks lower interest rates even further? Even with little equity, buyers should hurry rather than wait too long:
Even with “only” 50,000 euros of equity, a loan can currently be had at 3.79 percent interest in the best case scenario. That’s 1,957 euros in installments with three percent repayment, but with two percent initial repayment, the monthly installment is also only 1,666 euros. The remaining debt would be 209,000 euros in 15 years. The loan would also be repaid in around 22 years. Anyone who waits much longer will first have to watch as prices rise again.
Source: Stern
