Cost of house construction with an architect

First of all, two things in principle: 1. You don’t have to choose between individual contracting and a general contractor (GU), you can combine them. Personally, I would always tender all trades separately and leave it up to each bidder whether they want to offer several or all trades. And now comes the difference to what clients have increasingly considered clever lately: I would NOT cherry-pick and take a single trade out of the whole just because there happens to be a bidder in that area who is twelve percent cheaper - that sounds like a tempting magnitude to laymen, but the value of a well-coordinated action is even higher. 2. A change is not just a change; both their contents differ (mainly in static-relevant and non-static-relevant), as do the clients (one switches ONCE the location of the technical room one floor higher or lower or shifts two walls compared to the catalog floor plan, another changes the dressing room width, washbasin position, and pantry sliding door COUNTLESS times). This CAN’T help but also affect the chemistry with the planner.

So far only inquired with two large developers and they were not averse, but unfortunately it is immensely expensive to make minimal changes.

The floor plan can also be created by a separately paid architect and then go to the GU with it.

So in 2018, an alteration of the floor plan at Town & Country was charged about €700 I think.

You wouldn’t even get a freelance architect for seven greenbacks. I would never have the freelance architect do only the floor plan – leaving out the other two thirds of the cake (execution drawings and construction management), the freelance planner brings very little quality gain. I would reverse the tactic in that regard, on the one hand generally not going to the big ones in solid construction, and on the other not asking “what does moving a wall cost in your catalog house,” but going with a floor plan that just happens to look like the catalog house with one wall shifted. Then they can very quickly figure out for themselves that they actually already have the price for such a house in the drawer.

That fixed prices below the minimum fee were agreed with architects even before the overturning of the HOAI, which applied EU-wide?

To my knowledge, the HOAI was never an EN or EU regulation, and it was not the HOAI itself that was overturned, but its mandatory nature. In my opinion, it remains a practical standard as a basis for calculating the architect’s professional liability risk.

What do you actually think about the idea of not agreeing on a fixed price with the architect (i.e., a price based on the construction sum), but paying him according to effort? Is this common?

That doesn’t need to concern you, you are not the official for customary practices, but building YOUR house. By the way, the HOAI is structured similarly to an income tax table and certainly takes the effort as an essential basis of assessment into account. For a single-family house, I consider it not close enough to market reality. I would even build in a bonus for adherence to the cost estimate.

We have a GU here in the region who employs 2 very good architects. With him, there is no off-the-shelf house, but all individual.

True individuality comes from the client and the plot. Forced originality (oval stairwell windows, captain’s bay window on the Tuscan Bauhaus) nobody needs. And in the case of “08/15” including “modified 08/15” and “advanced 08/15 Superior,” I even consider it a MISTAKE to dogmatically “cook fresh” when you can take a tried-and-tested basic model out of the drawer. Therefore, “free planning” then appears to me as a deceptive bait (which you can also conveniently justify paying this de facto contract architect somewhat more than usually for a draftsman).

Calculate with approximately 350,000 euros.

True individuality comes from the client and the plot of land. Forced originality (oval stairwell windows, captain’s bay window on the Tuscan Bauhaus) is unnecessary. And in the case of "08/15" including "modified 08/15" and "advanced 08/15 Superior," I even consider it a MISTAKE to dogmatically “cook fresh” when you can take a tried-and-tested basic model out of the drawer. Therefore, “free planning” then seems to me like a deceptive trick (with which one can also conveniently justify paying these de facto contract architects a bit more than the usual draftsman).

You seem to know the general contractor I mean, don’t you? I rather think not!

You seem to know the GU I mean, right? I rather don't think so!

Guess number two is totally correct.

I think that varies from GC to GC.

I believe you misunderstood me. Of course, every GC calculates a little differently. One hires freelance architects, another has one employed, and with someone else there is "only" a draftsman.

What I meant is the often repeated claim that the planning of a single-family house has an exactly determinable value, which in turn corresponds to the respective fee according to HOAI. This assumption then leads to the conclusion that every GC has somewhere in their calculation a surcharge of the same amount, since they must also incur these costs. Ergo, the client cannot "save" on planning costs or circumvent the HOAI fees in any case, as it is not economically feasible.

I consider that nonsense.