Offer for shell construction of a single-family house 170 sqm - Is the price market-appropriate?

I find the price for earthworks, wall and concrete works, as well as the roof completely reasonable. What price would you not have considered overpriced?

Our prices are similar. I had written that a few pages earlier.

our last post is already several months old, so I wanted to give an update here. [...]
- 170 sqm living space, square floor plan with a bay window on the front side, two full stories, planned as KFW55
- clear room height ground floor 2.70, upper floor 2.50 [...]

Well, at least you rudimentarily describe the building volume. Overall, I find such "we are building x sqm (cbm) for y price" threads unfortunately only "seemingly helpful" when the original poster wants to keep their specific house as much in the dark as possible. Presumably with good intentions, to provide readers with a calculation aid. But mostly, this only fuels the myth of a monthly updated construction price index.

We have now obtained offers for many to almost all trades with the help of the architect. [...] We also included the connection of the drainage in the offer from the shell builder.

What kind of request for proposals is that: a professional tendering (and why then only "almost all" trades – did you not involve a general contractor?) – how and on whose alternative was the drainage included in the shell construction lot (which is reasonable)?

Unfortunately, we could not reduce the offer for the shell construction further, although it still seems relatively high to us.

The hope that the next small economic downturn might let prices fall is regularly unfounded and is naturally disappointed accordingly. Everything that becomes more expensive during the wait for a price drop is beyond belief. Smart builders skip gambling on this commodity futures bet.

Instead, we decided on a different clinker, which even drove the offer up. We switched here from an NF clinker to a WDF clinker, which resulted in some additional efforts.

You are welcome to report these additional efforts separately and also explain them in more detail: in times of the fashion of octameter-step jumping dimensions or wall thicknesses (with the resulting general additional efforts), the additional effort by using "individual" clinker formats is relatively offset. Such formats are best manageable in a wild bond. And in general, here both the 11ant stone mantra and the fundamental requirement of skilled masons for the clinker work apply.

I find the price for earthworks, masonry and concrete works as well as the roof completely reasonable. What price would you not have considered overpriced?

A good question. We are basing it less on the shell construction price and more on the total costs for the project. 455k (including incidental construction costs) for 170 sqm. That would be about €2650 per sqm. Is that a market-typical price? We had spoken with acquaintances who built for €2300 per sqm 2.5 years ago. That is where the feeling of inflated prices comes from.

Well, at least you rudimentarily describe the building volume. Overall, I unfortunately find such "we are building x sqm (cbm) for y price" threads only "seemingly helpful" when the OP wants to keep their specific house as secret as possible. Probably with good intentions to offer readers a calculation aid. But usually, this only fuels the myth of a monthly updated construction price index.

What kind of request for quotation is that: a proper tender (and why then only "almost all" trades – did you not involve any general contractor?) – how and on whose alternative did the drainage get included in the shell construction lot (which is sensible)?

The hope that the next small economic downturn might let prices drop is regularly unfounded and naturally leads to disappointment accordingly. What becomes more expensive during the waiting time for a price drop is unbelievable. Smart builders save themselves the gamble with this commodity futures bet.

You are welcome to report these additional expenses separately and also explain them in more detail: in times of the trend towards octameter rhythm jumping measurements and wall thicknesses (with resulting general additional expenses), the additional effort is relativized by using "individual" clinker formats accordingly. Such formats are best handled in a wild bond. And in general, here both the 11ant stone mantra and the fundamental requirement of skilled masons for clinker laying apply.

The request for quotation is carried out through the architect. He had also proposed to include the connection of the drainage in the shell construction offer.

Due to the WDF format, both the number of stones needed (thus also material costs) and the effort for laying increase. We are at about a 5-8k surcharge.

The 'Price index for new residential buildings in Germany' from statista shows a value of 138 for Q1 2022 and a value of 161 for Q4 2023. Assuming that nothing significant has changed since Q4, there would be an increase of about 16%. Adding 16% to 2300 eur/sqm results in approximately 2668 eur/sqm.

So, for a rough estimate, I would say that your price for today is probably similar to that of the acquaintances about 2 years ago.

A good question. We base it less on the shell construction price and more on the total costs for the project. 455k (including incidental building costs) for 170 sqm. That would be about €2650 per sqm. Is that a market-standard price?

I received a market-standard general contractor offer for a multi-family house last week. Well over €4,000/sqm. Your €2,650/sqm is extremely cheap (whatever is included in the price). We at the bank actually don’t see anything under €3,500/sqm for larger projects.