Oh dear, all the alarm bells are ringing.
When you then ask the colleagues what they think of prefabricated houses made of wood, arguments like: cardboard, and very bad for resale, etc. come up.
160,000 €? What do you want to build? What should be included in the 160,000? The land as well? Did Town & Country offer you a turnkey house for 160,000, or a shell house?
Sorry, if you can’t do almost everything yourself, it won’t work. The incidental building costs alone will cost you between 25,000 and 40,000. Then there is nothing left for the house.
I’ll write down our costs for a prefabricated house with 145 sqm living space, 1.5 stories, without a basement.
House in basic version without floors and painting work: 190,000 €
Ventilation system 7,500 €
Swedish stove 7,500 €
Floor plan adjustments 5,000 €
Incidental building costs 25,000 €
Extra costs for more expensive earthworks 10,000 €
Additional land costs (notary, realtor, taxes, authorities, land registry) 15,000 €
Kitchen 10,000 €
Garage 8,000 €
Outdoor facilities at least 10,000 €
I’ll add it up for you, because as you can see you easily end up at 300,000 € without the house being much more expensive. There is a whole list of costs in house construction that unserious house providers don’t tell you, because it’s not their problem whether you can afford a water connection or if you have to build a garage because the building regulations of your municipality require it. A serious house provider will send you home again and tell you that you still have to save properly.
6 months until moving in ... in the current boom phase where everyone is building? Of course not... our house provider builds about 18 houses every week, and even there they have a waiting list of 12 months until house installation.
It is important that you look at where and especially how your house is produced. What materials are used, how it is insulated, etc... someone who knows their stuff can already tell whether it is a planned rip-off or whether the builder means it honestly.
If, say, you have to finance 200,000 fully with the bank, you need at least 1,000 € monthly for that. In addition, about 300 € monthly for incidental costs that come with owning a house every month. Can you manage that on one salary? Always expect that you might possibly have children, one of you might lose their job, or worst case you have to refinance expensively because the money isn’t enough.
Before you sign anything, definitely have an independent financial advisor check your finances and calculate what is possible for you. The house bank is not always the best address. Don’t let yourself be locked into building savings contracts too early. These are usually pure money destroyers if for some reasons you cannot use them for building later. (Just have a look on YouTube... there are some ZDF reports on the topic... actually well explained). BSPV are only useful for interest rate hedging. But even then it sometimes pays to just put the money in a daily allowance account. Interest terms of 20 years are no problem anymore today. Under no circumstances get involved for 10 years ... you pay a lot for that.
Alright, enough talking. I hope this helps you a bit to better assess your situation. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer...