I did not believe the correction was coming fast enough to matter for my decade horizon. I bought…
T=0: The Decision
Eight years renting in Berlin. €1,100/month for a 60m² apartment in Prenzlauer Berg. In 2022 my lease ended and my landlord offered to renew at €1,450 or sell me the apartment at €490k. Friends said "wait for prices to fall." The ECB had just begun raising rates. The consensus was that Berlin real estate was in a bubble that was about to correct.
I did not believe the correction was coming fast enough to matter for my decade horizon. I bought a 2-bed in Neukölln for €425k at 3.2% fixed mortgage for 15 years. My monthly cost went from €1,100 to €1,640. I had not waited this long to keep renting forever.
Owning a home. Not catastrophically overextending.
6 Months Out
The renovation revealed a damp problem behind the kitchen tiles that cost €8,200 to fix. German building surveys are significantly less thorough than UK surveys. Budget for revelations.
“Hire a Gutachter (independent surveyor) before you close — not just a visual inspection. The seller's Energieausweis tells you very little about structural condition.”