Offer General Contractor or Architect

Hello everyone,

we have an offer from a general contractor for a 140m² 1.5-story shell house for about €150,000.

Additional construction costs: €60,000
Plot: €60,000 including ancillary costs
Materials for remaining construction work managed independently: €50,000

Can I get it cheaper with an architect and if I then tender the construction services separately?
The construction start is stated as 11 months. Can I also achieve a shortening here?

Short and painless, you cannot realize a complete interior fit-out with a 50k material budget. The question also arises as to who should do all of it. In your place, I would build turnkey with a general contractor due to the fixed price guarantee.

Regarding costs, you need to sit down with an architect and have him make a cost calculation. 50,000€ can already be realistic for materials if you really do everything yourself and don’t have to pay any labor costs anymore. Of course, it depends on the equipment. Among other things, electrical and heating are still missing. Can you really do all of that yourself? 11 months for a bit more than a shell construction is a lot. It can of course go faster, but it also strongly depends on the region and the workload of the companies. Furthermore, I am missing the € for the outdoor facilities. Here, you quickly spend 20,000 for the most necessary things (Spritzschutz, entrance platform, terrace, courtyard + driveway).

Thank you for the information. For now, I am mainly interested in comparing a shell house for 150k or whether I can get a cheaper deal with an architect.

The following items were not included which were considered in the 60k additional construction costs:
Earthworks 15k, surveying 2k, utility connections 7.5k, construction electricity and insurance 2.5k.

Also included were kitchen 10k, access road 6k, floor coverings 8k, and painting work 3.5k.

I think the distinction was not made very consistently here.

For the most part, the 150k only includes the foundation slab, masonry, roof, windows and doors, as well as the planning-related items.

For me, it's first about comparing a shell house for 150k or whether I can get a cheaper deal with an architect.

If you tell me the lottery numbers for next weekend, I'll give you the right answer to your question.

The problem with the architect is that he doesn't set the prices, but the craftsmen in your region. In the end, everyone wants to earn their profit margin – the craftsmen of your shell house builder and the craftsmen you hire through the architect for individual trades.
If you find craftsmen desperately looking for jobs, it can be cheaper. But it doesn't look that way in today's world.

The huge advantage of the architect, however, is that you get a house individually tailored to your wishes. Usually, though, the architect house becomes the more expensive undertaking – but that is due to the wishes of the builders and the individual house design, not the concept "architect house."

Mostly, the 150k only cover the foundation slab, masonry, roof, windows and doors, as well as the planning-related stuff.

In principle, any house builder can do that in a simple version. Whether it is 5k euros more or less doesn't matter. It gets interesting with the finishing. That's where the cost traps lie. For 50k euros interior finishing, you get social housing standard in the cheapest version. But then that is no longer the problem of your house builder, but your personal one.

If you are willing to build with a general contractor (GU) / award a contract to a GU – and I advise laypersons against self-awarding individual trades – then you only need an independent architect for a standard house if the plot is challenging. If both the house and the plot are standard, the GU's all-inclusive draftsman is sufficient.