I would be shocked if it hasn't. Here in the greater Nuremberg area, prices have been going up steadily for the past 3 years or so. It took us a year to make th

I would be shocked if it hasn't. Here in the greater Nuremberg area, prices have been going up steadily for the past 3 years or so. It took us a year to make the winning offer on a reasonably-priced house. We got a 15 yr mortgage at 1.6% from the local Sparkasse (think Savings and Loan), though we did put down a traditional (high) down payment. So why did we buy? My (German) husband's fear of inflation finally surpassed his fear of debt to accommodate my Anglo-American need for my own pied a terre :) Rents are going up around here, and even though there's the 15% over 3 year limit, that's still a lot over the long term. It was nice not to feel like we had to buy a house, though. That gave us time to save up, to know what we really wanted in a house and to be really certain that we wanted to stay in this region.