It is still a lot of money. That’s why it has to be well considered.
It is money that you either have yourself or have to finance through the basic loan. But the reduction of the land purchase price through own clearing also saves on ancillary purchase costs (notary, real estate transfer tax).
Can you explain that in more detail? Why is that a downside?
Mainly, it is about scheduling coordination: the trench for the pipes must be fillable and drivable again soon. The craftsmen with their two-ton light vehicles only come in the finishing phase, while the shell construction starts with a concrete mixer truck, a crane, and medium-heavy trucks between six and nine tons. They all have to "get through this narrow pass," as it is beautifully said in Wilhelm Tell.
Now this has nothing to do with the initial question anymore, but what would be the next steps if one basically likes a plot of land? Is there a guide here in the forum or somewhere else?
My "House Building Schedule, also for you: the HOAI phase model!" can be freely googled (including the quotation marks), and directly there additional individual services can be found. In broad terms, I have already mentioned it many times in forum posts here, each time adjusted to the specific needs.
Assuming we basically decide to buy. Would I then go to an architect and start with phases 1 and 2? And when does the land purchase really take place? Because I actually do not want to buy the land without an approved building permit or preliminary building inquiry.
The preliminary design from the architect as the "result" at the end of service phase 2 is indeed excellent for a preliminary building inquiry. But if the purchase of the land is still pending and should be made dependent on the building permit, you can also create the preliminary inquiry yourself; a simple student’s set square is sufficient as a tool. But I already wrote that you can basically "use" a building permit for the previously planned duplex: if the now desired single-family house, simplified speaking, "fits" into its building volume and you approve its intended position on the plot, then the question of fundamental approvability is basically already answered.
You usually only go to the architect after the land purchase, initially for "Module A" (service phases 1 and 2) according to my house building schedule, as also described here: . Depending on the response to the rest period with decision-making, you let either the entire "Module B" or only service phase 3 follow with (unless the "chemistry" hasn't matched) ideally the same architect, whom you mandate overall up to including service phase 8 (but according to my suggestion in several tranches). In "Von Bauleitern und ... Bauleitern" I explained why you shouldn’t use the so-called construction manager of the general contractor as a reason to save your own construction manager (architect or expert).
You talk about tenders. Does the architect do that or how do you tender things?
People with the self-perception of "enlightened consumers and clever bargain hunters" are clever ones’ favorites—you can deceive them wonderfully. General contractors (GC) like to dazzle with (flexible) construction service descriptions that include remarkable brand logo collections (usually called "our partners" on the website). Having the architect prepare a separate construction service description is decidedly less time-consuming than comparing apples and oranges.
But above all, the quantity and measure determinations of a proper tender create a clear contractual basis. Without this, there will surely be deviations between "fixed price" and final price as regular as Amen in church, and certainly also disputes about it. Usually, the GC then has the "pressure tool" that the client is already foreseeably sitting on the packed suitcases of the terminated rental apartment and pays a tuition fee through gritted teeth.
Tendering is best done by the architect (service phases 6 and 7) based on his own service phase 5, but some other independent building consultants also offer this. I myself currently don’t have it in my service catalog, and to my knowledge, the independent prefabricated house consultants I know only do passive checks of construction service descriptions, but I certainly don’t know all colleagues.