Old houses belong to older generations, and new houses are bought by rich people. Young people don't stand a chance, for some cities even not with a lifelong mortgage - unless they live in countries like Singapore which explicitly tackled this problem.
You might remember American Standard advertising toilets that we re-engineered for efficiency by aerospace engineers. There's a reason why late-90s aerospace engineers pivoted to toilet architecture. (Hint: Not a passion for the throne.)
No, not really. Unlike in the US, other professions still make more to much more. Engineering pays same to slightly more. Tenured professors make more than most SWEs, but there are some SWEs who make more than that. Lawyers and notaries make much more. Doctors of course make much more. I bet architects make more as well but this one I have not checked. Any credentialed financial job makes at least as much. Managers in any industry will make more than any typical SWE (being a manager is how you typically break into the six figure range). But to answer your question, mortgages are affordable and most people rent.
But this is one of the most expensive cities. You can be lucky and be living in a small town 50-100km outside and if you don't have to commute daily, it's completely reasonable to buy a house (on rates) in your late 20s.
The kind where both partners have top jobs (less common) or receive inheritance (most common).
Only people who bought a decade ago, work in Finance or as a notaries or sold shares in a successful startup can afford it.
- People with 30+ year mortgages
- People living in the middle of nowhere who will work at the same crappy company for the rest of their lives (or lose everything when they are let go)
- People who commute 2h per day
- People who inherit at least 100k
- People who bought their first house 10 or 15 years ago and now think they're invincible because real estate prices have exploded
2- By taking painfully long commutes to cheaper locations.
3- By living with parents/partner. This is not an option for most people, but probably what makes moving to a job a difficult situation.
> what kind of people are able to afford a house?
Apparently, half of Germany can't afford a home.
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/246355/home-ownership-ra...
Yeah, nobody can. At least not without a huge mortgage. That's why house prices are one of the biggest political issues in Europe.
Munich, 28m2 flat, 1 room, built in 2019, price 720.000 EUR, location: right under the train tracks between inner and middle ring.
That's 25.000 EUR/m2 for a hole under the train tracks.
Old 100m2 flats between midle and inner rings go in munich for 1.5 million EUR if they are old and destroyed, and well over 2 million EUR if they are relatively new (2.5-3 million).
That's 15.000/m2 for old buildings requiring repairs and 25.000-30.000 EUR/m2 for new buildings.
So at least for Munich you are off by more than a 150x factor.
Saving 20k/year doesn't even give you 1m2 per year.
If you do not inherit a good amount of money or earn incredible well (like >100.000€) you will forever be a "poor" man in Germany or you can sell your soul for a house and pray that you earn enough till you retire to pay back your mortgage. Taxes are just too high and income too low...
This. I'm a freelance here in Berlin and I pay 950 Euro/month for the (public) health insurance. The insurance covers only myself, while my kids are covered by my wife's health insurance, which is another 800 Euro/month (half covered by the employer).
Note that before moving to Germany I was living in Switzerland, where I had a private insurance that was WAY cheaper that the German public one and had all sort of perks.
I'm currently looking for a house in SW Germany, near the french border. I'd be happy if prices would max out at 2000€/m². I can not renovate a full building (both time and skill-wise), so - including necessary improvements - houses we're looking at start at about 1800€/m² and surpass 2200€/m². And we're not talking about "center of town" here or even "built after 1990". More like "neighboring municipality" or "no way I move so close to the Autobahn Zubringer". Obviously Munich or Berlin are much more expensive, and "middle of nowhere" (like in "also no or little tech jobs") is cheaper.
But anything marginally close to a railway track, Autobahn or federal road or any bigger city at all is far more expensive.
That town is pretty much "Arsch der Welt", though they now have 50MBit/s internet since a few years. Next city (a small Kreisstadt) has multiple super markets and is 20km away. Mobile reception in the town is okay, I think they just skipped 3G for a decade and now partially swap 2G for LTE. Public transport to/from the Gymnasium [45m bus drive] is three times a day: Going there in the morning, and returning for 13 and 18 o'clock (so pupils can get to and from school for both the regular 6 lesson days and the longer 10 lesson days). For anything else you need a car; an electric car might work, since for most interesting hacker jobs you only need a total range of maybe 150km per day (outliers in both directions apply). OTOH, even if people might seem a bit skeptical of newcomers at first, they turn out to be super friendly. After all, it's easy to know everyone by name if you're just 250 people.
Where I live (Saarland) the "Bodenrichtwert"[0] alone is usually between 80 and 120 Euro for the "affordable" areas I looked at. So little chance getting more than a ruin for 100 Euro/m².
[0] For non-Germans: The "Bodenrichtwert" is the average price per m² of "raw land", that is, excluding improvements like houses. It is updated every 2 years to include recent sales in an area.
That's like buying an utterly broken, old Porsche for scrap value and then wondering how repairs like a new engine and a new $everything are costing you a fortune.
I ask that question and I make now nearly 6 figures.
Before it was passible to buy a flat and pay it off, now prices are where you wanna sell it in 30 years or so.
If not even this is enough to pursue home ownership, what kind of people are able to afford a house? Honest question.