House Building Forum - Would you buy or build a house again?

Honestly... who would have immediately thrown in the towel after 7 months of talks and working on plans, after already having spoken to 8 others but not getting anywhere close?

Honestly... if you've spent seven months in talks and planning with one provider (after having talked to others before), you've wasted a lot of time. The house planning can (especially if you want to) and should be significantly faster – what exactly is being planned for so long? My commercial clients with much more complex properties are even faster. I would never have spent seven months talking to one provider without a finished result.

If you are constantly being kept waiting for appointments, 2-3 weeks pass between the appointments, and then at the appointments you find that what was originally discussed has not yet been implemented, then summer (=vacation time) comes in between, and the contact person also needs surgery, then it happens very quickly. It took too long for us as well. After 4-5 months, it could have been done. You can certainly reach the result much faster, but then half of it is missing. Our neighbor signed within 4 weeks, but is now complaining about various things that he did not consider. Certain decisions also mature along the way. Accordingly, the shell construction, which has been standing there without windows for 3 months, also looks like that. Speed is therefore not equivalent to quality. Good things take time, especially with that amount.

True, good things take time – but then I think about before the conversations what I want and inform myself a bit beforehand.

With you, it was all through the lengthy talks with the general contractors. For the next appointments (whether with architect, general contractor, or craftsmen), you are then prepared and can present a list of your wishes each time, e.g.:
- Space requirements for architects with a budget of xy
- Wishes regarding electrical equipment or sanitary equipment
- Wishes regarding the facade – does the company have to work with cladding or maybe the painter comes with ETICS
and so on.

This makes the conversations quick – and if the wishes become too expensive, you can always cut something.

I know people who took a few weeks of intensive time for preparations for the conversations with prefab house companies – the result was a specification sheet (while the architecture was already fixed), which was several DIN A4 pages long. There were sharp discussions with the companies, no big arguments, and in the end price and performance were absolutely transparently comparable.

It doesn’t have to go that far, but with proper preparation it becomes significantly easier and more effective for both parties...

I already have some respect for such a last-minute decision

Although I think you probably knew it beforehand, you just continued with the planning?

I don’t want to go through all your posts now, but didn’t you mention recently that the planned house is about 200 sqm and should include a lot of technical stuff as well as a double garage, roof terrace, etc? Maybe it’s all these nice-to-haves together that made the planned home rather an undefined and intangible size, so one gets scared?

So - the following is my personal experience, therefore definitely not representative.

The saleswoman of our self-build house sold us not only a good house + expansion packages for a fair, reasonable price.

But from that moment on until moving in, she also took care of one or another problem. She was always there for us when we called. She provided contacts and also tried (successfully) to mitigate things she couldn’t have seen before (because she can’t see the future). The saleswoman not only successfully sold a house, but partially contributed significantly to the completion of the construction project. It was her interest, and it was important to her, that it worked. Apart from that, she was even on the construction site several times and when we were stressed: a bottle of sparkling wine in the trunk....

When I listen to the neighborhood: house sellers (who are supposed to be the experts) can’t be as generally negatively regarded as claimed, other people around me are satisfied too.


Thorsten

Honestly... if you've spent seven months in talks and planning with one provider (after having talked to others before), that's a lot of wasted time. The house planning can (especially if you want it yourself) and should be much faster – what exactly is being planned for so long? My commercial clients with much more complex properties are even quicker. I would never have talked to one provider for seven months without a finished result.

Well – our planning phase lasted over 12 months. The first draft was a dream. However, it became a bit too expensive. Then we tried to save the whole thing through planned own contributions. Luckily, at some point, we realized we were getting stuck and wouldn't be able to manage the own contributions. So after about 6 months, we pulled the plug. Subsequently, we received two more drafts that we didn’t like. It wasn’t until 3 months after pulling the plug that things moved forward.

With the contract signature, a little over 12 months after the start of discussions, the complete draft was finished and the building application approved.