Offer Solid House

Hello,

I have a question about the solid house offer. How close does the offer come to the finished house?

For the first offer, we should think about the floor plan. For this, we had put together a corresponding floor plan. This was drawn more or less 1:1 and an offer was made for it. Since we didn't like the window arrangement at all, the offer was revised twice. However, the meaningfulness of the floor plan was not considered. I think there is still potential for optimization.

My idea now was to sit down with the architect of the general contractor to discuss the floor plan. I also understand that the house construction company has no interest in continuing planning without a signature on the contract for work. According to the seller, changes can be made free of charge at any time until the building application is submitted and will be priced accordingly on the offer through an extra charge or credit. On the other hand, we would of course prefer the offer to essentially correspond to the actual construction.

How is this with other general contractors?

It was the same for us. However, we have already included many things in the offer price. Bay window and ventilation, outdoor water tap, outdoor lighting, etc.
So we have a fixed price from the start. For the redesign of the floor plan that only came about after the architect visit, we incurred an additional 4000 in costs.

We had a floor plan that we actually already liked, but during the 10-hour architect session, several aspects came up that we had not thought of. It’s good that the architect went over it with us again. After the discussion, we had one more pantry and a perfect kitchen layout and a cloakroom niche. In total, this resulted in an additional 8 meters of wall length. 300 € per meter of interior wall.
Then calculate another 10,000 minimum for the sampling budget, then you have the price of what you will roughly spend in the end. Of course, without additional costs.

Hello Der Da,

then it doesn't seem to be that unusual after all.
We also already have some things included in the offer that are in addition to the BLP. We have now thought about the floor plan again and realized that we would change it once more from our side. Financially, it would probably only change to a limited extent, but we would have less traffic area in the house and could later, for example, place a double garage/carport next to the house instead of behind it.
10K€ are planned for the sampling.

Did you renegotiate the price again? What was achievable there?

Well, what did we manage to negotiate in? That’s hard to answer since our house provider works with voucher promotions.
We had an offer on the table for 190,000. We hesitated, and then the seller pulled the vouchers out of the hat.

- Clay bricks instead of concrete
- Wood stove for free (however with an extra charge of 1,500 for room-air independence)
- Energy package voucher. Instead of a gas condensing boiler and a 150 l tank, we got a free upgrade to the better gas condensing boiler, a 300 l water tank, and a solar thermal system on the roof + window rebate ventilator and fan in the bathroom. However, we then exchanged the fans for a decentralized residential ventilation system... necessary for KFW 55.
- Kitchen voucher with massive builder’s discount and 2,000 € credit. The voucher was awesome. We now have a Nobilia kitchen which was offered here for 25,000 but we bought it in the partner kitchen studio for just under 11,000. Without having to negotiate. The first price was 19,000 then almost 6,000 discount was taken off and then the 2,000 € credit on top of that.
The appliances installed in the kitchen have an internet price of almost 7,500 €. The kitchen including sink, waste sorting system, nearly 8 meters of cabinets, LED lighting and many small extras including delivery and assembly for 4,000 €... it’s not cheaper even at Ikea. In addition, there were also two great lunch vouchers worth 30 € each on the two planning days :D

Since I just can’t stop bargaining, I also got 2x outdoor lighting included and negotiated a sampling voucher of 800 €.

Next week we go to the sampling appointment at the building center 400 km away. There they pay for our overnight stay, and even an extra night for us... since my wife is in the middle of her seventh month. During the sampling I will bargain again... much to my wife’s displeasure, but I can’t help it... whoever doesn’t bargain pays too much. They will let you know when the limit is reached. Anyone who wants to learn how to bargain should go to Beijing for a few weeks... not the Orient... You meet in the middle, there is haggling over every cent, everyone as high/low as possible. If the seller still smiles at the end you lost the deal :D (Happens to me every time... even after 30 tough minutes over a brass dragon :) starting price 80 €, final price 15 €, actual selling price 5 €.)

Financially the advantage is already huge, but surely all of that was already calculated into the price beforehand. The invoice amount itself could not be reduced.