Construction company wanted in the Stuttgart metropolitan area!

Apparently some builders confuse requests for quotes with a rampage. Just imagine that where you earn your bread: one customer would first have twenty time thieves :-(

??? What does that have to do with a "rampage" when you obtain quotes from as many companies as possible? This is usually the biggest investment of a lifetime; I would have sent even more inquiries if more construction companies were an option.

The real time thieves are rather the construction companies themselves, who make price comparisons almost impossible with as opaque and incomplete offers as possible.

Where I earn my bread, prices are transparent for customers and comparable without having to spend weeks on it. But that seems to be different in the construction industry in general: no comparability or transparency at all.

Where I earn my bread, prices are transparent for customers and comparable without having to deal with it for weeks. But that seems to be generally different in the construction industry, no comparability or transparency at all.

That would by no means be the case.

That is normally the biggest investment of one’s life,

Then one should reasonably take some time to learn how to tender, because

time wasters are rather the construction companies themselves, who make price comparison almost impossible with as opaque and incomplete offers as possible.

should actually mean: the clients who trigger difficult-to-compare offers with unstructured inquiries. The providers would even be grateful if more "effort" were put into it – which by the way noticeably increases the qualified response rate (i.e. that responses are not rejections).

What does that have to do with a "rampage" when you request offers from as many companies as possible?

By "rampage" I mean on the one hand blindly firing your request for offers all around like in a full circle, the more hits the better; and the time theft consists of giving many providers work without regard and appreciation of the time required to prepare an offer. Letting twenty-one providers dance – in other words, a closing probability of 4.76% – is simply disgusting king-consumer behavior. Just imagine it concerning yourself: you would only work sensibly two and a half weeks a year, and the whole remaining time you would spend on people who just wanted to know if you were the cheapest.

Four or even five requests I grant every client, the puppy bonus as a layman is already included – but a dozen at once is clearly a disregard of other people’s time. Making others deal with the fact that you are too lazy to tender properly and then complaining that the answers come so unstructured as you shouted into the woods is quite outrageous. You can tell that the only-child generation is coming into purchasing power. Poor national economy :-(

You are only building / buying ONE house – with what right do you allow such an inappropriate number of providers to write offers just for their majesty’s pleasure? – 21 inquiries mean 20 duds. Kids don’t get bedtime stories read by their dads because they are doing overtime because of your inquiry – or do you think that a bit of an offer is written on the side during the smokers’ break? – from a certain level, thoughtlessness seriously becomes antisocial.

Thanks for your opinion, but I think we are not on the same page or you misunderstood me.

By the way, the request was indeed very structured and detailed (with a "specifications sheet", floor plans, site plan and other points that were important to us, type of heating and essential requirements from the development plan). I do this professionally as a purchaser of relatively complex services.

And of course, it was not the expectation to receive fully worked-out offers directly based on this request. Nobody did that (except for one company). But as a customer who will later spend 400-500k with the company, I do expect that they make an effort regarding the order (at least a 1-2 hour consultation) or otherwise just decline directly. That also happened and that’s good. Better for 9 providers to decline directly than for me to cause everyone involved hours of work and then find out that the price, timing or service doesn’t fit. But I will never find that out if I don’t inquire.

Closing probability of 4.76%

At least in our case, the closing probability wasn’t derived from how many others we contacted. Rather, it was based on appropriately responding to the request, providing a good initial consultation and realizing after a 1-hour consultation that it would basically fit (start of construction, price, trust). In the end, we received full, reasonably comparable offers from 4 providers.

Generation only child

seriously antisocial.

I find that "antisocial" in turn, because you neither know the background nor am I an only child.

If you actually mean to have inquired in a structured manner but are dissatisfied with the answers, this will not be a coincidence. My requests for proposals always include the note that only answers conforming to the given format will be considered – i.e. that 1. other forms of response are gladly accepted ALSO – but not INSTEAD – and 2. only the answer corresponding to the format counts, and "hidden" exclusions elsewhere do not apply. And I ALWAYS establish personal contact with the recipient of a request addressed for the first time. Above all, my very first step is always to measure the number of request recipients in a reasonable relation to the project volume: the fairness deal is "effort for a qualified offer against a fair chance of award probability" – and I clearly no longer see that in a 21:1 ratio. Such a request is an imposition; that is not appropriate among business partners. Request spam is a serious problem and, incidentally, leads to an hardly desirable "cleansing" of the market: such DoS attacks existentially threaten family businesses, while they are well weathered by private equity pump guns and even welcomed for the aforementioned reason. Just as a suggestion for (social) brain use.

im Umkehrschluss also eine Abschlusswahrscheinlichkeit von 4,76%

Sorry, wrong phrasing. It should have said: a closing probability handicap factor of 0.0476 (and that is simply unfair – unless the request for proposal included the note: "you were asked along with twenty other bidders").

denn du kennst weder die Hintergründe, noch bin ich Einzelkind.

My remark was not intended as an accusation that you personally are an only child – but rather about the mindset of a generation that treats the entire department store as its court when Majesty contemplates buying something.

...Said the patriarch generation... funny how you twist everything the way you want. The right approach is always in the middle.

I'll try to get back to the topic again. So, what came out of the conversation with the provider from post #60?

I will now ignore the posts that do not belong here and return to the topic. Attached is a brief update on the current status:

Prefabricated House / Timber Construction

[*]Hanse Haus -> Offer received, looks "okay" at first, but we have not yet started breaking down the construction service description
[*]Bien-Zenker -> Offer still pending
[*]Bittermann & Weiss -> Offer received - expensive - details to follow
[*]Talbau Haus -> Appointment took place. Overall a nice salesperson and we also like the approach of a somewhat smaller company, but somehow the spark did not jump. There was a lot of talking, but in the end we left the appointment with little information. I still need to take a closer look at their wall and ceiling construction. They advertise good sound and insulation properties, but from my point of view they have a very thick floor and ceiling construction, which unfortunately costs ceiling height and knee wall height on the upper floor.
[*]Fertighaus Weiss -> excluded
[*]Schwabenhaus -> excluded/canceled
[*]Albert Haus -> put on hold

Solid House Providers

[*]Haus der Handwerker -> Offer received, price looks okay at first. Breakdown of content and construction service description still pending. (yes, I know the opinions on HdH)
[*]Hauser Massivbau -> Appointment scheduled for early March
[*]Köhler Wildberg -> Appointment took place. Very positive contact and a very nice conversation. Various reference houses and plans were shown to us and then they addressed our construction project. In the end, there was a rough price range and the next steps were outlined. The house is planned with an architect and then the trades are awarded as a general contractor. We had the feeling that Köhler does "honest" work and would also try to find a solution if there are problems. This was not one of those "I have to sell a house now" appointments, but an honest and open conversation. However, we somewhat missed the feeling of what quality the "standard" is at Köhler. What is included in the standard and whether it suits our taste. Also, the price range was rather estimated roughly, so we actually cannot make any statement about the later price. Of course, this can only be done in detail after the architect's planning, but a rough price range including our special requests would not be bad. This would need to be addressed again at a follow-up appointment if necessary.
[*]AWS -> Appointment scheduled for mid-March
[*]U-Haus -> Newly added based on a recommendation from acquaintances. Appointment scheduled for mid-March
[*]FERMO -> excluded - clearly too expensive
[*]Härtter Renningen -> rejection from Härtter due to capacities

By the way, to come back to the topic again: we have excluded Albert Haus, Fertighaus Weiss and FERMO without a consultation appointment. That means the only time investment by the salesperson was about 10-15 minutes of conversation in the show house. And Härtter declined directly without a conversation.