Housing in Germany

In southern countries people spent a lot of time outside and homes and ambiance don't play such an important role in the everyday life. Although Germany isn't a really cold country, there is a cold season and even in summer there are periods now and than in which most people wouldnt like to spent their evenings and weekends outside the hoause like people in Italy or Spain do. So homes do play an important role for Germans.

New apartement buildings

As a heritage of our forfathers, the Old Teutons, many of us Germans are quite a bit individualistic and like to have a hideaway of their own. So many people here appreciate having privately owned homes or would appreciate. Many people here are saving for their homes or – later – paying mortgages for many years to fulfill the dream of their lifes: their own houses.

Tenements
But not all people can afford to build or buy homes of their own. So also a lot of people live in appartements here. If they can't afford a homes of their own they at least want to live in a nice appartement. So the middle class Germans live in the newer appartmenthouses leaving the older tenements to the non German people and the poor.

Terraced houses from the 1950s

Thus quarters with appartement houses usually go through a certain carreer: There are quarters which were builded in the fifties and used to provide up to date living conditions than. So middle class people rented the flats to spent their lifes their. But fortune and demands got ahead and the next generation of appartements, in the sixties, became quite a bit more modern, had more and bigger rooms, they got central heating and things like this. So the kids who moved out from their parents to start their own lifes rented these newer apaprtments if they ever could afford. And some of the older people did so too because they maybe got better payed jobs in the meantime and anyway the general standard of living was rising during the years form 1950 to 1990.

Refurbished tenements from the 1950s

So the free apartments in the older quarters were rented to poorer people and foreigners. The quarters got more dirty, more noisy and maybe more dangerous too: So most of the rest of the people who first lived their by and by moved away. By now, the tenement quarters which were build in the fifties and used to be middle class quarters than, are stuffed with Turkish, Russians, alcoholics, drug addicted and things like that. Now and than you can find one of the old inhabitants still living their, being glad if at least there is'nt a muezzin yet sqwaking down from his minarett a couple of times a day.

Typical Tenement from the 1950s

Some of these older quarters are areas with both tenements and privately owned homes mixed. The owners of these homes are the most unlucky people: They can't move away like the old tenants from the appartement blocks and now have to spent their sunset years between Turkish and Russian shops, mosques, drug addicted and street gangs.

Middle class quarter from the 1960s

An expensive thing: A privately owned home
Buying a home of your own is quite an expensive thing here although at the moment used houses are comparetively cheap because actually few people can afford to buy or built one. Back in the fifties and sixties, building a house used to be affordable for much more people than now, at least if both husband and wife worked. Usually a working class family who had built a home of their own used to live with the wages of the wife and to pay the mortgage with the payday of the husband.

Housing Area with privately owned homes, newer apartement houses in the background

But building a house became more and more expensive with the years. This has do to with building regulations getting stricter, demands and standards rising, real estate getting rarer and surely from the German mentality to build massive and perfect houses, too. So in the eighties it already was quite difficult to buy or build a house. Typically people get themselves into debt for 30 years when they wanted to get a home of their own.

Quarter with older privately owned homes

But anyway there are still people who can afford to build homes of their own. At the moment it would be a good idea to buy an old house because these are actually quite cheap. And there are lots of nice older houses here because obviously already in the 20s and 30s their used to be some people who could afford one.

Quarter from the late 1920s or 1930s with upper middle class houses

During the III. Reich there were programs to help families to get houses and lots of small, simple but nevertheless very nice and snuggly sort of houses in a very typical style were built. These programs were continued after WW II because there was a huge need for housing space after the bombings and diplacements of people from East Germany. I myself live in such a house which was build in 1956 and I´m very happy with this, hoping I wouldn't have to leave until I will do with my feet to the fore.