Building a house compared to buying a house

Ouch. That sounds like a self-contracting adventure, without service phase 5, and in service phases 6 to 8 without an architect.

I regret not having built with self-contracting… We are building with a general contractor. I have gathered 10 architects from my circle of friends and colleagues around me, but even those who had also built themselves had, during or after construction, partly massive problems up to legal proceedings and now a third expert opinion. Nowadays, in my opinion, it is pure luck how it goes when you have something built. And it doesn’t matter whether general contractor, contract for work and services, or individual contracting. You don’t stand at the construction site for 8 hours with any of the mentioned constellations and instruct the people. The only exception I still see is construction mainly with one’s own work if the expertise and craftsmanship as well as conditions (time, etc.) are given. I repeat myself when I say that the years-long exodus from the construction industry to industry has led to hardly anyone having learned the craft they perform from the ground up, and you can see that now. By the way, we also enjoy being close to family. With 2 kids and 2 full-time employed parents, it is pure gold to have the grandparents next door. One day they will reach an age where they need support, and then we will be there for them, just as they have been for us all their lives. That, of course, requires an appropriate relationship. We are grateful for that.

I repeat myself when I say that the years of migration from the construction industry to industry have led to hardly anyone having thoroughly learned the craft they practice, and you can see that now.

That is very true. My husband is a trained landscape gardener and cannot leave construction sites for a single day because all the laborers don’t know what they are doing without instructions and supervision. Basically, with luck, the teams in his company consist of 2 trained workers, the rest are career changers or laborers without vocational training.

I repeat myself when I say that the years-long migration from the construction industry to the industrial sector has led to hardly anyone having learned the craft they practice from the ground up, and you can see that now.

That was also the main reason for my resignation from the window industry (starting almost ten years ago), that getting qualified installers was harder than getting an appointment with a specialist doctor.

That is very true. My husband is a trained landscape gardener and cannot leave construction sites for a day because all the assistants without instruction and supervision do not know what they are doing. Basically, the teams in his company at best consist of 2 trained professionals, the rest are career changers or helpers without vocational training.

Yes, the times with a 50% certification rate (every two-person team one journeyman and one helper) are over. By now, even entire crews led by at least a multi-year experienced semi-trained worker are a rarity.

I have gathered 10 architects in my circle of friends and work, but even those who had also built themselves had sometimes massive problems during or after the construction, up to court proceedings and now third expert opinions.

Knowing architects or being one yourself alone is unfortunately not enough.

I regret not having built myself…
We build with a general contractor (GU).

A major problem for many clients is their completely unrealistic idea of what a general contractor (GU) actually is (and by what means he tries more or less successfully to fulfill his fixed-price performance promise). But how someone with ten architects in their circle of friends cannot be an exception to this phenomenon, you will have to explain to me in more detail sometime.

Nowadays, in my opinion, it is pure luck how things go when you have something built. And it does not matter whether GU, construction management (BT) or individual contracts.

As someone who earns his living significantly with this "casting call", I have to strongly disagree. The construction management (BT) is naturally out when it is your own property, but still rightly included by you in this list (because the phenomenon does not fundamentally bypass BT customers). In this respect, GU and BT essentially only differ in who contributes the land to the building project—the quality of their employees is basically the same. However, there is a huge quality difference between a) GUs who participate in tenders and b) GUs whom naive clients approach without tendering. I repeat this for good reason until the last potential victim understands it.

You do not stand on the construction site for 8 hours with the people and instruct them in any of the mentioned situations.

Leadership is an important topic. And also that you must not confuse construction managers with "construction managers" I say like a mantra. For my clients, construction quality assurance does not start with inspection, because before inspection comes prophylaxis and prevention. This means first, strict moderation with obsession for individual planning and detail gimmicks for the clients. Furthermore, detail planning includes not only the drafting part with the representation of execution and connections but also the focus on inspection. Inspection means, importantly, not catching someone doing something wrong!

An underrated, essential lever is to take at least a catalog model with series experience preferably in the shell construction phase. Step two is then not to overload the house with details.

Quite simply, we wanted to start building at a time when the structural engineers said, "come back next year, we are fully booked this year." And this trend continued through ALL trades. And because we had already been occupied with planning, etc. for almost 1.5 years, time eventually became pressing. We were one of the very last to still secure an interest rate of 1.3% for 15 years. Four weeks later, it would have been 2.7%. You can imagine what that means on €450,000.
The general contractors were the only ones who still dared to make date commitments. Obviously, they are also the ones who claim the construction capacities of their subcontractors, which is why the independent builder ends up at the back of the queue.
We were also warned by all architects that we had chosen "the one-eyed man among the blind," but it was without alternative. Two of them had built with general contractors themselves but took on the site management. However, at the time of commissioning, I did not dare to do that myself and could not expect them to appear on my construction site exactly when I needed them. So I acquired a lot of knowledge in a short time, and the publicly appointed and sworn expert was programmed on speed dial #1 shortly after the start of construction.