Finding tiles from other manufacturers / sample selection for builders

Hello Homebuilder,

Construction expert, I think we are talking past each other.

No, I don’t think so, because ...

Where is the problem in saying the house costs, for example, 250,000 EUR, of which the following amounts are allocated to:

- foundation slab
- shell construction
- screed
- interior finishing
- tiles
- sanitary
- etc.

Do you understand what I mean? I am not interested in the purchase prices, but in what the trade is ultimately worth.

Yes, of course I understand what you mean. You have this cost transparency if you award all trades yourself, i.e., build with an architect. Question: why didn’t you do that if the actual costs of the individual trades are so important to you?

Since building a house is undoubtedly also a manual craft, there should be parallels here.

There are, and they consist almost exclusively in the path you choose. Building with an architect => selection of all trades (x 3 if you want reasonable transparency) and thus the listing of individual trade costs you desire, but no fixed price (if there is, the architect is legally treated like a main contractor and is liable for all trades, which he will rarely or never do).
Building with a general contractor in individual stages or completely => mixed calculation (serious general contractors still list the individual material prices for, e.g., tiles and sanitary objects and answer price questions about individual trades, but not completely), but with a guaranteed fixed price according to their specifications.

If I buy a complete house, no one tells me what the shell, doors, and windows cost, as I said, not purchase prices, but the value of the finished service.

Then you should not have built with your general contractor, but should have chosen an architect! I get the impression you want the security/warranty/fixed price of a general contractor but still want to keep the option to pick out the cherry-picked parts under the motto "the good in the pot, the bad in the crop."

And the more I inevitably deal with the subject, the clearer it becomes to me why this is so. Because many house offers would be killed off in advance, and a quick recalculation would already show that the payment plan often provided in the construction contract is designed to the disadvantage of the builder, although all general contractors and prefab house providers very well know that they must advance payment according to the Building Code or VOB (where applicable).

Sorry, you open a side issue here. Even with probably bad actors, you have the possibility to inform yourself about the payment plan in advance and to check the company. Nobody forces you to sign the submitted contract; so you remain in control of your decisions.

With non-transparent fixed price offers and corresponding payment plans, it is easy to turn the tables and send the builder into advance payment without him noticing.

A brief note from my years in this job: except for very few exceptions, this only happens to builders who are willing to put all common sense aside for the submitted local offer (where every reasonably thinking person can feel that something is wrong).

Don’t get me wrong, construction expert. I am not saying that everyone does this, but during the planning phase for building, I read enough offers, construction contracts, and payment plans. Both from smaller and well-known providers, and I came across quite a few where the payment plan does not match the corresponding construction status or the value of the service provided. When you asked questions like how much a shell is worth and whether maybe 60% of the house price isn’t a bit much for it, the pussyfooting started immediately, and they tried to wriggle out like an eel...

So you sorted out these providers, where exactly is the problem then? By the way, 57-60% is realistic for the closed shell. Since by law you can terminate your general contractor at any time, you have enough capital left, in case of emergency, to finish your house.

Again, there is no "all-round perfect solution" – either you decide to work with an architect with the risk of exceeding your budget but with full cost control, or you choose a general contractor with a fixed-price guarantee, knowing that you need quite some additional reserves to realize your additional wishes if the offered standard is not sufficient for you. Incidentally, for some builders, both variants come down to the same thing.

For my part, I can tell you that I do not sell anything below a closed shell to my clients, and accordingly would not name the price for the foundation slab, as I would never remove this service from the contract. Whoever argues accordingly in a personal conversation, I recommend working with an architect; they are better off there and happier in the long run.

Kind regards

Construction expert, from my point of view these are all purely theoretical considerations because I don’t do anything in EGL anyway.

That’s why there is no cherry-picking or anything like that with me.

As you already said, I am master of my decisions, therefore I weighed both options (architect / general contractor).
To put it in the words of an unsuspecting builder:

You have the choice between the plague and cholera

But seriously, I consciously decided on the general contractor because it is important to me to have only one point of contact in case of defects or other claims. If you deal a bit with the legal situation when it comes to asserting defect claims with individual trade contracts, your hair can easily stand on end and in the worst case it can become a nasty pitfall.

For that, I also accepted the less transparent regulation. Of course I checked the payment plan and had it adjusted accordingly.