krakp

What happened to me was: - my daughter was born after ~3 years of me being in Germany - my son was born after >8 years of me being in Germany - during the process of me (and my wife) applying for the German Citizenship   This means that: - my son got his German Citizenship at birth, automatically (the >8 years rule) - and was the first German in the family :-) - my daughter was part of our "Family application" and received the German Citizenship a few months later together with us.   hope this helps! Cheers, krakp        

  You can - but then, i think, they would need to go through the whole procedure, which is not quite practical for a newborn. Normally you would then apply for the citizenship yourself and add them to your application.

  + tips? 

A house is not like shares... you can't just make 5 clicks to sell a house and buy 2 smaller ones in a different area... Many offers stay in the market for many months. So it is not like you will have huge problems selling in the hot area (especially if you put a good price) but the process takes time. 

  Let's be honest, Mike - you will hardly find another investment with this kind of return. I would also not be investing in anything else if I knew how to get this kind of return. Congratulations on your investment decisions! :-)   Now - there will still be enough folks out there that will never get this kind of returns and for them house ownership could be an interesting option. Again - it is not about which option is better "in general" (I don't think it is possible to even answer this kind of question) but rather what makes sense to each individual. 

There is one more sweet thing about my example that I forgot to mention: out of the €2.100 monthly installment only between ~ €700 (at the very start of the loan) and ~ €500 (at the end, when you already paid back a good part) gets burned/given to the bank/sent down the drain as your interests. The rest (€1.400 up to €1.600) is actually used to pay back the loan - so it creates capital for you. As mentioned before, this does not include the transaction costs of ~ 9% (€77k in this example) and any other costs connected to house ownership. And of course you cannot know if the house value will go down or up, so it is definitely not risk free. And selling a house is not so easy. And, and, and... It is not only sweet.   But depending on your situation these numbers may be quite interesting, I guess...

  Everyone can insert a different value of N into your sentence and it will still make sense (for some) or be idiotic (for the others)…   The (confusing) thing about German loans is that even though they are 'modelled' for 40 years or even more if you want (and are young enough - the bank may not trust you to continue paying in 40 years if you are 65...), the actual 'commitment' (which is called Zinsbindung - 'the period of constant agreed interest rate') is much shorter - typically 10 to 20 years. What this means is that you can get a house worth €850k for a €2.100 monthly rate (see my earlier calculation) fixed for 15 years, let's say. After 15 years you are left with a big part of the debt (in my previous example it would be about €575k) and you can decide: continue with a new loan, sell the house and pay back, rent out the house etc. So it basically goes down to whether the house value will grow or not. It is not quite the anchor you are describing. And maybe in 15 years the economies will not collapse just yet...   But of course I have no idea of your life situation and I am by no means suggesting that it would be a good idea for you. Just showing the high level math behind it …  

@TurMech these are all valid points. The buying vs renting discussion is a never-ending story (and covered in quite a few older lengthy threads already like https://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/130886-renting-vs-buying-an-apartment,  https://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/223825-house-prices-in-germany,  https://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/218836-renting-vs-buying-a-house-in-southern-germany). Everyone's life situation is different, so there will not be a perfect answer for all.    However, the current extremely low interest rates make it possible for many people to afford buying which drives the prices up. And you earlier asked if it is possible to afford a given loan value with a given income, to which the answer is yes. Whether this is a good idea?: it depends... :-)

  This depends on how quickly you assume you will pay it back (the Tilgung - yearly repayment rate). You can easily make it a factor of 4 if you say: I want to be done in 10-15 years... But I doubt that it is really 2x if you plan the credit for 40 years, let's say.

  For a very quick and simple calculation: Assume interest rate of 1% (possible nowadays) Assume Tilgung (yearly repayment) of 2% (quite low but also possible)   You get 3% per year, which is ~ 25k. A bit over €2.100 monthly. Possible if you earn €4.500 after taxes...   Of course the numbers get better if you bring some money up in front (10-20%?)   Cheers, krakp   Edit: as TurMech mentioned below, this does not include the side costs (which will amount to ~9% in Munich), so you would need to have another €75k saved....    

It is also possible to buy a pig in a poke...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_in_a_poke

You should be happy! Assuming that you are not missing any big deductions (a tax advisor could help you on this), having only 100 € refund means that you are paying exactly the right amount of taxes every month.    For most people the taxes they pay monthly are higher than they should be and then they get a refund at the end of the year. If you prefer to pay more taxes monthly but get a higher refund at the end of the year (which makes little sense from the financial point of view even with the interest rates are as low as now...), you should be able to have your tax advisor arrange for this....   Then, for example, you would be getting 100 € less every month, but your refund would be like 1300€ (12 * 100€ + the 100 € you are already getting). I personally, though, prefer it exactly the other way round - to pay as little tax monthly as possible and then 'repay' it at the end of the year - thus getting a kind of interest free credit from the FinanzAmt. But this is only possible to some extent - the FinanzAmt would rather have you pay more monthly and get a refund at the end of the year   Hope this helps! krakp