Assessment of Financing New Construction 425k € / Overall Financial Situation

What is often missing here in the forum is that a user presents the honest final invoice.

Either he was right and no longer felt like explaining everything to the “know-it-alls” until they might believe it, or the others were right and no one wants to admit it.

I would therefore be happy to know the all-in final price at the very end and wish you that it turns out as you predicted :-).

If I remember correctly, you built with individual contracts, right? Did you have a GU offer? And what savings or additional costs did you end up with from the individual contracts? Can you quantify that? Roughly by estimation?

We are at least 30k below the GU offer. But that is less due to the individual contracts and more due to our own work. The entire annual leave and a whole lot of accumulated overtime from both of us is all invested in the house. Additionally, help from family and friends.

Example painting: GU wanted 7000€. We paid 1500€ for paint and materials. And then we needed 225 hours to paint. So, on the one hand, we saved a full 5500€ and also achieved an hourly wage of 25€ (net), which is really great. (Although buying and carrying the paint, cleaning, and touch-ups also add up...). On the other hand, we eventually found painting just dreadful, and especially painting the ceiling was agonizing. When it came to plastering, we took a long time until it looked good, and the painter can certainly do that much faster.

In this respect, we didn’t know whether to be happy about our great savings or envious of the neighbors who had it done for them...

What is often missing here in the forum is that a user presents the honest final invoice. Either he was right and no longer wanted to explain everything again to the "know-it-alls" until they might believe it, or the others were right and no one wants to admit it. Therefore, I would be happy to know the all-in final price at the very end and wish you that it turns out as you predicted :-).

The problem with building yourself is often that so many of the costs get "lost in the swamp". We have hundreds of invoices. In addition, our parents helped a lot and also paid for materials there. And it will still take some time until all the landscaping is finished...

Overall, things have gone significantly better for us so far than feared in the forum, BUT: - Family and friends have not let us down - Our salary will be €1000 net higher in 2 years, so the child phase no longer scares us - Probably our parents have supported us with "paying something again and again" now in the five-digit range. And the other BUT: - There were some construction costs that were significantly higher than planned - Despite extensive research, there were highly surprising incidental building costs, also in the four-digit range - It was an incredibly exhausting year - We still have construction sites in the house and the landscaping requires several hundred more hours of work and honestly we don't feel like it anymore :-(

In this respect, we didn’t know whether to be happy about our great savings or jealous of the neighbors who had it done for them...

It’s great to have saved 5,500. And work (DIY) that you can see afterwards has never hurt anyone.

I’ve only read the last three pages from yesterday/today here so far.
I often wonder with such threads why the OP’s tone is so snippy-arrogant and often also somewhat malicious.
Is that normal? Yes, for people under pressure, apparently it is.
I then feel like there’s a nagging person in front of me who just doesn’t want to listen and constantly shouts, “That’s not true, it’s different for me.”

The exact scope of services will follow tomorrow, but at first glance it looked pretty good on site.

You can post that one. They all always look “pretty good” at first ;)

Fixed price turnkey, including all incidental building costs (requirement up to ground class 5): €410k.
In addition, floors and painting work (only painting) + utility connections. So a total of about €420k.

Unfortunately, the confidence already ends with this including incidental building costs. That would be comparable to my hairdresser paying for hair extensions on me himself so that he has more to dye.

But ultimately, a forum cannot judge whether the numbers are correct here, because no one has seen the draft or construction service description. The numbers and parameters remind me of a discussion from a few days ago… the land value was similar, also a slope with a double garage in the basement, etc. Was that you too?

Morning,

interesting discussion here. Weren't most of us like this at the beginning as well? Aspiring builders can only believe what the companies tell them. Now there are a lot of former builders here who have already been through it all and often painfully made their experiences.
I count myself among them, costs came from all sides at some point that I had not expected. Fortunately, I could cushion these with family help.
When I was in Arango’s situation, I would (and did) still carry out my project, of course. However, it got tighter towards the end, and we had to postpone many things, that’s just how it is, we chose it ourselves.
Now our construction was several years ago, it wasn't like it is today back then.
Here are 3 examples from the immediate environment that I witnessed live and partly supported:

a) A family member is renovating an older house, an architect planned it and is also supervising. So far everything went well and as planned. The tiler came and looked at the construction site but refuses to give an offer because he has no time for that. Two other tiling companies immediately refused by phone, no time. Exact words from the architect: “The tiler is good and fair, hire him now or you won’t have one in 6 months, plus it will only get more expensive.” It was a bit strange, but what options do you have?

b) Neighbor wants to have the landscaping done. The first gardener-landscaper came by and calculated everything, pricey but these are the prices nowadays. He will start work in about 13-14 months. That was too long for the neighbor, so he called 3 others. Exact words on the phone: “Thank you for your inquiry, but we are so fully booked that we won’t look at any new construction sites for the next 8 months. Besides, whatever price I would tell you now won’t fit by the time we start anyway!”

c) Friend is building a multi-family house with 4 apartments. All were already sold before construction began. Then prices rose and now he’s losing money because materials etc. have all become more expensive. A pretty bitter pill, all the work and stress completely for nothing, although the sales prices achieved a little over a year ago were solid, it’s not working out for him. Loss business.

So, now my personal tip:
Ask about the conditions for additional financing in advance.

You don’t want to hear it now, but the construction costs won’t work out.

When you work through the construction service description, do not write down what is included, write down what is not included.

In other words, look for lists of incidental costs, services, items that you read here in the forum, etc., and see which of the points are NOT included in the construction service description. That is what becomes expensive later.