Two Years of House Hunting, Still No Home for a Family of Five

Hi friends, for two years now, Miriam's family has been looking for a place to buy. The rent they pay every month is money they'd much rather put toward a home of their own. But affordable housing is hard to come by, and the frustration grows week after week. We sat down with her to talk about it…

Miriam, you've been looking for a new home for two years. First, tell us a little about your family.

There are five of us: our twin girls, who are 6, and our son, who is 3. My husband is 40 and I'm 42. We've been back in our hometown of Aachen, in western Germany, for three years now. Before that we lived in Cologne for twelve years, with a two-year break in Milan. We left Cologne for a few reasons, including wanting to be closer to family and friends. But the main reason we moved back to Aachen was the hope that we'd find more affordable housing, or a place to buy, since prices in Cologne kept climbing at the time.

My husband is an IT specialist and works from home almost all the time. I'm a seamstress, and I've been on staff at a theater for a year, after a five-and-a-half-year break for parental leave (in Germany, that can stretch up to three years per child). On the side, I also run a business with my sister. We started a baby and children's clothing label in 2013. Right now we're not putting much time or work into it, because our priorities have shifted a bit.

How are you living right now, and why doesn't it work anymore?

We're in a four-room apartment in an older building, about 1,300 square feet (120 square meters). It's big, but the layout is really bad. We have a large living room and a large bedroom, but only one kids' room for all three kids. The fourth room is the office/studio that my husband and I share. There's no way to make big changes here, like putting in new walls.

We've lived here for three years and pay about 2,500 euros a month, partly because the location is so good. That high rent is one of the main reasons we're desperate to buy. In the long run, it's just way too much money to hand over to someone else every month.

Our apartment in Cologne had gotten too small for five people, and our current place belongs to a friend of ours. We figured we'd move in as a stopgap and then take our time looking for something to buy. Today I can say: we thought it would be a lot easier than it is.

What's your dream home?

Ideally, we'd find a home with 5 rooms, and 6 would be perfect. Then each kid would have their own room and we'd still have a home office. Preferably with a yard or a balcony. We'd love to stay in the city. Our absolute limit is 750,000 euros, and even that would really hurt, because our savings would only cover a tiny part of it and we'd have to take out a very large mortgage…

What have you already done to find a new place?

Every seven days, my husband combs through the real estate listings. We've also looked at a number of houses and apartments. On top of that, we've dropped letters into the mailboxes of houses that were obviously empty, with some info about us and a request to get in touch. Friends and family keep sending us tips, too, but so far nothing has worked out for us.

When you've viewed places, why haven't you gotten the offer accepted?

Mostly, once we'd seen the place, it was simply too expensive for us, because the listing often didn't show all the costs still to come. In other words, on top of an already high purchase price, there were big renovation costs.

Other properties (especially new construction) just had layouts that didn't work at all for a family of five.

What does it do to your family that you just can't find anything that fits?

The dissatisfaction keeps growing, especially for my husband. We pay a crazy amount in rent for an apartment with a number of flaws. That money could be put to such good use in a home of our own. The dissatisfaction affects everyone in the family more and more. The kids fight a lot because none of them has a space to retreat to.

Why do you think so many people can't find affordable housing?

Not enough has been built in the big urban areas, and that's still the case. When private companies do build, their costs and profit expectations are so high that the prices end up too high. Speculating with land and vacant buildings still seems to pay off, or at least politics isn't putting a stop to it.

Politicians don't really care about the problem. Kids and families are a minority, and older people mostly already have housing. The costs and extra fees of buying property are too high. Saving up the money you'd need on a normal income isn't possible. Even people with high incomes basically need an inheritance to be able to buy a place…