We are planning on buying an apartment or a house in the next year or two and we're trying to work out some calculations.
Situation: we are living in West Germany and and this is where we'd like to buy the property. After tax, we make ~6500EUR per month, of which we save about a half, no less than 35k a year. We have 53k in the bank right now. We are looking at properties priced 350-450k (side costs included - these amount to 8-12% of the purchase amount in Germany). Although we have the option of getting a mortgage with 0 down payment, the terms are disadvantageous, to say the least.
Point of worry: in the area we want to buy, the prices have increased roughly 20% in the past 3 years and I'm not sure it won't hike at the same rate also next year.
Question: is it feasible to take a personal loan of 30kEUR, just to have the money sit in the bank until we find the property (maybe in the spring, maybe at the end of the year) and, instead of saving the money, repay the loan? This would allow us to take a loan at any point in time, without worrying that prices would get out of reach.
The conditions would be: loan on 2-3 years (to lower the monthly minimal payment), adding unemployment insurance for the period of the loan. While looking for the house, we would pay double or triple the minimal monthly payment.
The purpose would be obtaining more advantageous mortgage conditions: lower time period, better interest rate, fixed interest rate on a longer period of time.