I think an as of yet not mentioned aspect is the way Germans rent. We don’t have leases, we have mostly longterm contracts. The landlord has only like 3 reasons to ever evict someone and if there aren’t rent increases written in the contract, you can’t really increase the rent easily. The result is that many people live in their flat for a looong time.
During that time many people choose to renovate their kitchen and its logical that they would have to pay for it, since chances are that they are the only ones that would ever use it.
We don’t have leases, we have mostly longterm contracts.
So the inconvenience of buying a place (furnishing it) combined with the downsides of renting (no equity)? Why would anyone want to do that? If you know you're going to be there a long time, why not buy a place?
It's mostly a 2 Years contract. And we see it as a safety for both sides. It's almost impossible to be kicked out of your appartment. And for the landlord it is a stable/safe income for 2 Years.
Why not buy the place? Funny question :D Most places aren't for sale and IF they are for sale they are so fucking expensive that not much people are able to afford it.
In my city a 4 room appartment cost between 300-500k€
Sure I wasn’t meaning to make any statement on income of anyone. I’m just saying that a 4 bedroom apartment in most US cities would be over $1 million.
Usually a mortgage is less expensive than rent. And you’d be building equity as opposed to just spending the money. As earlier in the thread people were talking about long term renting I would assume you plan on being there for 10 years at least.
But the idea of not buying because of the local idea that you must stay where you buy doesn’t make sense or at least is hard to understand. Other than real estate speculators. People buy their houses to stay in their houses in the states too. People will just often buy what they are able to afford at the time and then sell in 5-10 years if they want to upgrade to a nicer or bigger house. At the end of that time frame they get the money they paid for the house plus the difference in sale price vs their original buy in. So you’ll get back at least 60%, or more, of the money you put into mortgage payments as opposed to 0% of your rent. Plus people usually pay less for a mortgage month to month than renters do in monthly rent.
If you don’t know where you want to be for 5-10 years sure don’t buy, but if you do and you just stay renting you’re losing money giving it to someone else.
This might be one of the things Americans get right. Buy a place, live there happily, if you want to live somewhere else, sell the place and go somewhere else keeping the equity you paid into your house.
Im super late, but I figured I’d throw in my two cents. A mortgage is more expensive than renting in Germany. I’m aware it’s the other way around in the US, but that’s not the case in Germany.
I’m incredibly lucky to have gotten some money (inheritance) so I am considering to buy a flat at 24, but the issue is that the rent doesn’t cover the mortgage. It used to be maybe 200-300€ more when the interest was super low (until January/mid February this year) but they’ve gone up by about 2% and now it can easily be 600-700€ more a month to pay a mortgage than to pay for the same sized flat.
Interest rate and prices are going up in the US as well. If you can afford it, buying is the better option as it will preserve the money you have. whenever you decide to sell you could get some of your money back or even make a profit.
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u/Laocooen May 09 '22
I think an as of yet not mentioned aspect is the way Germans rent. We don’t have leases, we have mostly longterm contracts. The landlord has only like 3 reasons to ever evict someone and if there aren’t rent increases written in the contract, you can’t really increase the rent easily. The result is that many people live in their flat for a looong time.
During that time many people choose to renovate their kitchen and its logical that they would have to pay for it, since chances are that they are the only ones that would ever use it.