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Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

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Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#191

Post by tluyben2 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #189
tluyben2 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just clicking around on real estate sites, large houses with gardens in nature seem to be rather cheap there. Maybe you are in another region but with mortgage % low, the prices like [0][1][2] are far from needing to be a millionaire. [0] https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t67035189/ [1] https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t67126374/ [2] https://en.arkadia.com/eden-t66305759/

Of course prices of old houses in need of maintenance, far away from the nearest city, in regions with little to no jobs, next to the border with Eastern European countries, will be cheap. Nobody wants to live there. Try looking at homes in the suburbs of desirable cities with jobs and see 10x prices. If we're just looking for random homes on the internet you can find better deals in villages in southern Europe but t…

> Nobody wants to live there.

Nobody besides everyone I know... I (nor my friends or family) would never want to live in or close to a city. Let alone in a suburb; if in a city then the center.

But you are right; still, to pay a 2m mortgage, you do not need to be a millionaire. And for 2m I see nice stuff in Vienna.

> catch why cheap homes are cheap.

I live in such a home in southern eu and for me there is no catch. Huge garden, swimming pool, large villa for 130k. Always sunny, nature, no polution. Just not close (40min drive; probably faster than a lot of suburb-center commutes though) to a city, that’s a benefit, not a catch.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#192

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #191
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course prices of old houses in need of maintenance, far away from the nearest city, in regions with little to no jobs, next to the border with Eastern European countries, will be cheap. Nobody wants to live there. Try looking at homes in the suburbs of desirable cities with jobs and see 10x prices. If we're just looking for random homes on the internet you can find better deals in villages in southern Europe but t…

> Nobody wants to live there. Nobody besides everyone I know... I (nor my friends or family) would never want to live in or close to a city. Let alone in a suburb; if in a city then the center. But you are right; still, to pay a 2m mortgage, you do not need to be a millionaire. And for 2m I see nice stuff in Vienna. > catch why cheap homes are cheap. I live in such a home in southern eu and for me there is no catch.…

Yeah, you don't need to be a millionaire for a 2m mortgage but you need at least a six figure salary which is nearly unattainable here, especially as an expat.

Yeah, you have swimming pools, but if you live in the cheap areas in Austria that you pointed out you compromise with underfunded infrastructure and public services(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids without good teachers, almost no doctors, too far from the nearest hospital with specialists, etc.).

Do you know why? Because all good doctors and teachers move to or next to cities with opportunities, not in the middle of nowhere. That's why nobody wants to live there.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#193

Post by tluyben2 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #192
tluyben2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody wants to live there. Nobody besides everyone I know... I (nor my friends or family) would never want to live in or close to a city. Let alone in a suburb; if in a city then the center. But you are right; still, to pay a 2m mortgage, you do not need to be a millionaire. And for 2m I see nice stuff in Vienna. > catch why cheap homes are cheap. I live in such a home in southern eu and for me there is no catch.…

Yeah, you don't need to be a millionaire for a 2m mortgage but you need at least a six figure salary which is nearly unattainable here, especially as an expat. Yeah, you have swimming pools, but if you live in the cheap areas in Austria that you pointed out you compromise with underfunded infrastructure and public services(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids without good teachers, almost no…

True, not for a lot of people on HN but yeah, then you are at the 10% or less indeed.

> on infrastructure and public arrives(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids, no good doctors, too far from the nearest hospital with specialists, etc.)

Those things are more relevant for some than others but also true; if any of that matters enough to someone to live in a small concrete box and still work 40 hours a week then sure, go for it. I value other things like quiet, space, no stress, nature over any of the above.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#194

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #193
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you don't need to be a millionaire for a 2m mortgage but you need at least a six figure salary which is nearly unattainable here, especially as an expat. Yeah, you have swimming pools, but if you live in the cheap areas in Austria that you pointed out you compromise with underfunded infrastructure and public services(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids without good teachers, almost no…

True, not for a lot of people on HN but yeah, then you are at the 10% or less indeed. > on infrastructure and public arrives(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids, no good doctors, too far from the nearest hospital with specialists, etc.) Those things are more relevant for some than others but also true; if any of that matters enough to someone to live in a small concrete box and still work 4…

Plus, how will you fund your mortgage if you chose to live in a rural area with no tech jobs? Employers here don't accept remote work outside of government mandated quarantine.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#195

Post by tluyben2 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #194
tluyben2 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, not for a lot of people on HN but yeah, then you are at the 10% or less indeed. > on infrastructure and public arrives(shit internet, shit infrastructure, shit schools for your kids, no good doctors, too far from the nearest hospital with specialists, etc.) Those things are more relevant for some than others but also true; if any of that matters enough to someone to live in a small concrete box and still work 4…

Plus, how will you fund your mortgage if you chose to live in a rural area with no tech jobs? Employers here don't accept remote work outside of government mandated quarantine.

That is the same in NL and DE, however, I have never worked in an office and I have been professionally coding for 30 years, mostly for Dutch companies. The ‘secret’ (it is not a secret and it works in Austria too) is to start a limited (or specifically not a 'freelance') company; 30 years ago I borrowed 20k guilders to open it (which used to cost 18k alone) and have cards, leaflets and style for letterheads etc made. Companies hire companies, especially if it looks professional. The company always had 1 employee for 30 years and I never had issues allowing to work wherever; even for large corps like ING, Kluwer and so on.

Also, a guy I hire on upwork sometimes made well over a million in the past years via that site, sitting in his house in ukraine. Without a company or anything like that; in modern times it is not so hard as it was.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#196

Post by 0x008 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #170
danrl wrote: post #53

Not ITT: The obvious topic of crime in Freiburg. OK, in 2019 the lost the lead of city with most crimes per 100.000 inhabitants. But Freiburg still scored 3rd place. Freiburg has many faces and the linked article is a very selective subset of what Freiburg is. Don't be fooled.

What explains the high rate of crime there?

bicycle theft maybe? 34% of people living in Freiburg do their daily commute on a bike and I guess most households own 2-3 bikes. I couldn't find any statistics, but Münster, for example, also has a bike usage of >40% and they have a horrendous crime statistic beacuse of bike theft (on average 13 people will have their bikes stolen each day).

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#197

Post by ivan1783 »

alimw wrote: post #117

In spite of the obvious conclusion that the rights of pedestrians have won out over cars in Freiburg, the lasting memory I have of my visit is of people waiting obediently on the kerb of an entirely empty road because the green light to cross hadn't come on yet

Part of this is showing to children that there are rules and the rules should be followed. If there are a bunch of people waiting and no kids around, it takes just one to step into the road and the rest will follow. If you do the same with kids watching you, somebody will yell at you.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#198

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #195
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, how will you fund your mortgage if you chose to live in a rural area with no tech jobs? Employers here don't accept remote work outside of government mandated quarantine.

That is the same in NL and DE, however, I have never worked in an office and I have been professionally coding for 30 years, mostly for Dutch companies. The ‘secret’ (it is not a secret and it works in Austria too) is to start a limited (or specifically not a 'freelance') company; 30 years ago I borrowed 20k guilders to open it (which used to cost 18k alone) and have cards, leaflets and style for letterheads etc made…

You have a cool story and thanks for sharing it but how much of that is survivorship bias? Also, out of professional curiosity, how many clients did you get in Austria.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#199

Post by imtringued »

Aperocky wrote: post #165
_ph_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true on many accounts. The decision to phase out nuclear energy was taken in the beginning of the 2000 years. There was some extension of the operating time when Merkel came to power, which was taken back after Fukushima. This also affects plants which are very old, so would need to be replaced or undergo some severe modernisation anyway. There have been no new German nuclear power plants since the early…

All fair, but 30% is not a small slice. All of that need to be replaced by something else, and the only thing that's quick enough to replace it was fossil fuel. Germany is also not exactly the ideal place for solar power generation. It's still leave people scratching over why you guys ditched nuclear energy. The newer version of nuclear reactors are safer than fossil when you factor in pollution, and EU itself has ex…

Germany replaced nuclear power with renewables. The more important question is why didn't they replace fossil fuels with renewables and the answer is complicated.

Re: Freiburg: Germany's futuristic city set in a forest

#200

Post by tluyben2 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #198
tluyben2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the same in NL and DE, however, I have never worked in an office and I have been professionally coding for 30 years, mostly for Dutch companies. The ‘secret’ (it is not a secret and it works in Austria too) is to start a limited (or specifically not a 'freelance') company; 30 years ago I borrowed 20k guilders to open it (which used to cost 18k alone) and have cards, leaflets and style for letterheads etc made…

You have a cool story and thanks for sharing it but how much of that is survivorship bias? Also, out of professional curiosity, how many clients did you get in Austria.

> how much of that is survivorship bias?

No idea; it's only anecdotal obviously. But not unheard of; it used to be quite normal in Germany to have small (1-2 person) GMBH's to get rather large contracts for big corps and if you have a 'real company' suddenly no-one expects you to rock up monday morning at 9. In the Netherlands it still works well, as it does in Portugal and Spain; other markets I do not know.

> how many clients did you get in Austria

1 around 17 years ago. But, at least from friends and limited experience, so excuse my personal ignorance, I understand that Austrian business is not very different from eastern germany business and I have (also had) quite a lot of clients there. I have more in the western part, but the eastern part is different in etiquette and I had the same, I guess conservative' feel 17 years ago with the Austrian company (trying to find what they are/were called).

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