Architect's fee for a single-family house

It was already a lot of work for the architectural office during our house construction. Creating all the tenders, etc., negotiating and handling complaints. Creating all the drawings, submitting the building application, coordinating craftsmen, some on-site appointments. You also benefit from the architect's good network for free. If I were an architect, I would also like to have that much... It is definitely a lot of stress and work. The question is what the supply and demand situation is right now. With little work, the architect will probably be willing to do it cheaper to get a contract. I would try to negotiate (10% of the house price, for example) or possibly ask a second architect? Good luck

No doubt, it will be a lot of work. He estimates 1,000 hours for a single-family house. The first offer was 10% higher; there isn’t much room to negotiate. Basically, however, we have a good feeling about the architect.

There are online providers who offer structural engineering planning for a flat rate of €4,000. So €15,000 sounds like a lot. Also, 6% for additional costs is listed on the offer. €5,000 for printer paper and travel expenses does not seem realistic to me. What else falls into the cost block?

Our architect also applied a fixed percentage to her cost calculation. We thought that was pretty good insofar as this cost item didn’t increase proportionally with the cost increases in the construction (we renovated). In the end, we landed at <10% of the costs; according to the calculation, it would have been 15%.

But everything (e.g. travel expenses) was included in that, I find it a bit strange if that’s supposed to be charged separately by you. Because 12.5% of 600K€ is only 75K€? We are at 90K€ for 15K€ for statics. Where is the rest of the requested 120K€?

I also feel statics is very expensive, but it certainly depends strongly on the complexity.

It is extremely difficult to find good benchmark values for fee proposals from architects in the relevant forums.

Maybe I am way off, but 1000 hours of work for a single-family house does not seem like little to me. Using the HOAI as a basis, this would mean the architect works one and a half months 40 hours a week straight to get the house approved by the authorities. With that effort, the architect can then build an average of 2 houses per year.

As mentioned before, of course, you pay for the work and not the time, but one would assume that there is somehow a relationship between the two.

I had such a fee proposal that broke down individual items with estimated hours. All this at an extremely low hourly rate (70 eur/h; 2023). And for comparison, he put next to it what the fee for a house at HOAI level 3, base rate would cost if you put my gross budget (-100k) for all cost groups (!) as eligible costs (!) into the hoai calculator. In his calculation, he ended up with an average HOAI price but made it look as if he was now offering me an incredible bargain.

Well, in this said hourly breakdown, for example, 10 hours were included for setback calculation. That seemed like a lot to me as well. He did not become the architect due to many other red flags, but that probably gives a foretaste of the topic of comparing offers.