Or any country with responsible lending rules.

Lenders are not your friends. They'd take your organs as payment if they were allowed. The rules are there to stop them doing bad lending and then hounding you to your death.

Is it a thing to find German mortgaging standards whacky?! I finally feel heard! Basically everyone here seems to pick up 35+ year mortgages with seemingly low monthly expenses, but the overall amount of interest they accumulate over that time is absolutely insane! And still, everyone says that you shouldn't pay more than 30% of your monthly income into your mortgage. It's hard to even find a bank that allows you to pay for a decent Sondertilgung each year. And don't even get me started on that whole Bausparvertrag system, because I have no idea what is going on with it or why anyone would ever do that