Architects or prefab house cost calculation and next steps

This also creates comparability between companies (whether prefabricated house builders or regular general contractors).

However, not crosswise: between stone and wood GCs there is always a special form of comparing apples and oranges. One should always clarify what material (stone or wood) one wants to build with, and only once this decision step is completed should one tender or inquire. And then the comparison should also be done crosswise if it is not based on the same basis.

All I can advise you is this: distance yourself as quickly as possible and before any contracts from exactly this architect, as he does not seem to be open to your questions/wishes/interests...

No, , beware of taking on the personal architect trauma of . One can only be grateful to the architect – as I already said, they (long ago) cannot all do stone and wood equally well – when he reveals his deficit early. However, this can also mean feeling well taken care of by this architect and thereby having the decision for the construction method already settled.

Anyway, I’m rather on the side of the architect and would say, as a first indication, take the average and work your way into the topic so that you can rely on your knowledge/your calculation and not take the numbers that appear lower.

I would even say that the sum of the respectively less favorable prices may come closest to the concept of "conservative estimate" ;-)

First of all, I would sort this out: solid construction can be a prefabricated house, but generally it is not. Viebrockhaus is not a prefabricated house builder. [...] If you don’t plan or want an innovative highlight, you go to a GC or construction company in the region. [...] Solid and prefabricated construction differ in the material of the walls: prefabricated houses are erected in 2-3 days, solid construction is built with masonry.

As you correctly noted a few lines above, the "distinction" between "prefab vs. solid" is misleading. The question whether you approach a GC directly and purposefully (as a client) or (in my opinion better) indirectly (as principal of the architect, whom you do not exclude from the GC tender), arises even without explicitly wanting a designer unique item – and it is a different matter whether a problematic plot demands a freelance architect.

About the architect: one can say that the estimate can increase by 10-20% during the construction.

The accuracy of the architect’s estimate has much to do with how currently experienced he is in practice. Formerly experienced architects who have been teaching their profession only at a university for twenty years make the biggest miscalculations. In short: don’t trust any architect whose last house was built under the Deutsche Mark era. He takes his assumptions about cost increases from tables and leaves it to his housekeeper to know what butter costs in Hamburg.

Hello everyone,

first of all, wow. Thank you for the great and mostly constructive feedback.

And now I come as a confusing third party and say: a freelance architect is good, but a cost estimate is nonsense. With the architect – whom you should preferably employ up to construction supervision – you do a tender in which general contractors are also allowed to participate. (A good while) before the tender you should have decided whether you want to build a stone or wooden house. There are quite some considerable differences (except in the level, where the range is equally broad for both). However, the majority of architects are not equally at home in both worlds.

NRW is a large area and the region where a construction company has a reputation roughly corresponds to the size of a government district. Here you can find a forum section "Experiences with construction company XYZ," where several regions and companies have already been discussed.

...Of course it's possible. The advantage is that you don't get a house off the rack, but it is individually tailored to you from the start. This also creates comparability between companies (regardless of whether they are prefab house builders or regular general contractors)...

Thank you very much for that. The third option was actually strangely unknown to us until now. But it also sounds logical. We plan to build in the postal code area 41*, i.e. Mönchengladbach and surroundings. If anyone here has good experiences with architects or GCs, we would be grateful for tips via private message. Apparently, the approach of just going to a "good" prefab builder and letting them do everything is not so optimal. Our initial meeting at Meisterstück was actually very positive. But of course also with a "seller."

I rather wonder why the OP doesn’t smooth the two calculations beforehand (you can see this quite well, for example, with both kitchen prices and the prices for the outdoor area) but/and wonders why the numbers diverge.

Anyway, I am more with the architect and would say, as a first indication, take the average and work your way into the topic so that you can rely on your knowledge/your calculation and not just take the numbers that appear lower.

Then feel free to ask me directly and not openly to the group ;) The answer is actually quite simple. I just can’t! I have no idea, for example, how much I would have to deduct from the 50k€ for the garden to come down to the basic equipment of the prefab builder. Without a concrete offer, this is difficult for me. As written above, we will still go to another architect and see if we get a better feeling there. And this decision is not based only on price but also on other “things.”

I agree. You can achieve a middle ground if you keep control during the sample selection and give the architect clear budget guidelines. :)

We have made the guidelines. However, the more or less only suggestion to get the budget under control was to reduce the square meters. Simple, effective, but we would have liked a few more alternatives.

However, not also across the board: between stone and wood GCs you always have a special form of apples-and-oranges comparison. You should always clarify what you want to build from (stone or wood), and only when this decision step is completed should you tender or inquire. And then the comparison should also cross over if it is not based on the same basis.

Even after further research, my impression has been reinforced that this is rather a philosophical question. We don’t care and wanted to let the price decide. But since it seems to be the same for both construction methods, we will take what, for example, the architect prefers, where we feel comfortable.

No, @mk_2021, beware of adopting @Gerddieter’s personal architect trauma. The architect – as I said, they can (long ago) not all do stone and wood equally well – you can only be grateful if he reveals his deficit early on. But this can also very well mean feeling well taken care of by this architect and thus already settling the decision on the construction method.

Exactly that ;) We are just looking for THE right architect. Recommendations welcome.

We plan to build in the postal code area 41*, i.e. Mönchengladbach and surroundings. If anyone here has good experiences with architects or general contractors, we would be grateful for tips via PN.

You should find what you’re looking for in the mentioned forum section. As a newbie, you would have to enter your email address in your profile for PN.

We took the approach of having an architect design the house up to the construction planning stage and then continuing with a relatively regional solid construction company from that point on. However, since we already knew very precisely what we wanted, we could have saved the costs for the architect. If your architect quotes a project sum of 1 million, he also receives the corresponding share. So if you don’t want an extremely individual house (either extremely modern in the Bauhaus direction, a half-timbered house, or an old villa), I would recommend looking around model home exhibitions and going through catalogs from construction companies (prefabricated houses and solid builders) to get a feel for what your house should look like. Look for floor plans, visit as many houses as possible, simply make an appointment with the kitchen maker and talk to a landscaper. A bathroom studio would also be worthwhile; many nice price drivers are lurking there as well. This all costs a bit of time, but first of all, it’s a lot of fun and you will get far more precise offers from the construction companies before signing the contract for what YOU want and not just what is stated in the standard service description (e.g. standard beech staircase/steel staircase or oak staircase, fireplace yes or no, parquet or laminate, standard fittings or not, garage or carport, smart home or normal electrics, standard windows or special sizes).
With your wish list, then go to the construction companies; the providers in the medium and higher price segment all have their own architects and can plan a house for you much cheaper than a freelance architect. Our architect included in the price of the construction company from the construction planning stage onward was even miles better than our freelance architect who otherwise designs the most amazing Bauhaus villas because he simply thought much more along and listened carefully to what we wanted.
Prices are so individual due to taste and also the plots; in general, our unforeseen price drivers were the incidental costs (especially earthworks, plan a big buffer here) and the electrics (look closely at what is included). Since bathrooms and parquet floors are important to us, the surcharges did not shock us anymore here, the fireplace and kitchen were cheaper than expected (40k I personally find totally exaggerated, depending on the appliances you end up with a nice kitchen with an island and lacquered fronts with a natural stone countertop easily at 25k if you don’t go overboard anywhere).
Regarding the companies, I can only share my experiences from the Munich area and for Bavaria; here you hear a lot of good things about the prefabricated house companies Weberhaus and Hanse. We had very good conversations with Rötzer, Danhaus, and Haas regarding the salespeople, though the latter two often seemed not particularly high-quality in terms of fittings. Okal Haus, Bien-Zenker, and Allkauf Haus have partially extremely bad references here and also had catastrophic contacts in the model home park, but this can vary regionally. We actually found our current construction company by googling and then conducting a few talks; a friend found her company through her parents’ neighbors as a recommendation, another simply asked people in the new development area and then decided.

We are planning to build in the postal code area 41*, i.e. Mönchengladbach and surroundings. If anyone here has good experiences with architects or general contractors, we would appreciate tips via private message.

We have just started planning our single-family house with RFCV from Meerbusch (just google it). We chose this architect after talking to about 10 builders, all of whom were satisfied with the collaboration. Otherwise, I also received a recommendation for Schrötgens from Mönchengladbach from a builder. However, he was out of the running for us because he is too far away (we are building in Duisburg). We mainly researched architects through H o u z z and Google.

We have already built with an architect once and are now starting our 2nd house project. I can't say anything about prefab house architects, but for independent ones there are 4 essential selection criteria for us:
- does he build in the style you want (obviously)
- do you trust him, can you discuss things with him, and does he bring in new ideas (emotional point, he should plan something very personal for you, that you will be happy with, not only now but also in 10-20 years!)
- does he have current experience in building single-family homes in your segment (does he know the costs and schedule in detail)
- how does construction management and supervision work with him (how often is someone on the construction site, maybe not relevant for you if you build with a general contractor)

You have to set the order of the criteria yourselves ;-)

Looking back, we would have wished for a different architect for our first building project, we got along well with him, but he hardly brought in any new ideas, many decisions had to be made ad hoc because his timing dependencies in the planning were completely off, and he had too little experience with craftsmen and costs.