Is building a house on a low budget still possible with the current prices?

Just enter your ZIP code on the Town & Country website. You get houses in the range of about 130-135 sqm for under 300K. For example, the Bodensee 129 or Flair 134. Houses that work in solid construction. A little upgrading, not going off the rails, and I think you'll stay (well) under budget.

I have to add something again shortly. Even with Heinz von Heiden ("my" general contractor), there are at least "from" prices for the house series "Die Unverbesserlichen ..."
for example, the S623 with a guest room and 3 children's rooms from €221,500.

So, if none of the suggestions include that ... then I really don't know ;)

Thank you all very much for the numerous feedback.

Regarding your points.

- Guest room: is definitely necessary. All relatives live farther away and always stay overnight. Planning it on the upper floor instead of the ground floor is a good suggestion that we will consider.

- Regarding Town & Country and the franchise system, I have so far heard mostly negative things. Recently there was a report about it on NDR, so we are cautious in this regard. But we did not know Heinz von Heiden until now.

At Town & Country, it depends on which company is responsible for the construction. So you can't just lump them all together. But it seems there haven't been any interactions with [Massivbauern], right? Are all of them just prefabricated houses? Nationwide ones don't necessarily have to be more expensive than regional ones.

Thank you all very much for the super numerous feedback. Regarding your points. - Guest room: is definitely necessary. All relatives live further away and always stay overnight. Planning it in the upper floor instead of the ground floor is a good suggestion that we will consider. - Regarding Town & Country and the franchise system, I have so far heard mostly negative things. Recently there was a report about it on NDR, so we are cautious in this regard. But we did not know Heinz von Heiden until now.

My colleague is currently building with Town & Country. He complains surprisingly little... so far almost everything is going smoothly (northern northern Germany).

Somehow, half of the text from my last post was not included and is missing.

I know the place you mean and can gladly recommend something to you.

Gladly.

Please keep us updated.

Yes, I will keep you updated on which direction it ultimately goes.

Otherwise, we visited the prefab house world in Heßdorf over the weekend and had a house calculated at Rensch-Haus and Fingerhaus. Although we compromised on our original wishes, both offers were still above the budget. But from Rensch-Haus, we received a great breakdown of the additional costs (floor slabs, earthworks, other ancillary construction costs, kitchen, outdoor facilities, etc.). This helps us as beginners, of course, to get a feel for it.

We will now inquire again with regional companies; maybe they are more attractive in terms of price. Büttner Massivhaus from Plech has a nice configurator with prices on the homepage. At first glance, that does not look bad.