Planning a new building // Building kit or "freely planned"?

Good evening dear forum community,

We are planning to build a single-family house of approximately 170 m².

We have already visited several "prefabricated house companies," received a few offers for "kit houses" (shell construction windproof), and now we really don’t know what to do.

Some amount of self-performance is planned, as much as possible if feasible. That does not mean we won’t use skilled professionals, but we have many "experts" among friends and relatives.

I have already read a lot about these topics and have often read that such a kit house, for example, is not really worth it because in the end it costs about the same as a house built by local companies where I don’t even have to do anything myself.

The offer for the kit house is approximately €110,000 for the shell including garage 6x9m (windows, front door, and roof frame including tiles). It is a timber formwork stone kit with 36.5 cm stones μ22 for the exterior wall.

I would be interested in your assessment of whether the costs of a "normally" planned house are about the same or significantly higher; for now, it is only about the shell.

Thanks in advance to you all

In order to compare anything with each other, the information is by far not sufficient. What always worries me, however, are statements like: We have experts among friends and relatives who then build with us. They all work for free on a house for you, or what. And they always have time, so that a somewhat concrete schedule is no problem?

What is a somewhat concrete schedule for you, time does not necessarily play a "role" for us, we do not have a double burden and if it takes 2-3 months longer, that is not so bad.

The friends and acquaintances all know about it and none of them said anything about it being for free.

What other information would be needed?

For now, it is only about the shell construction and I already have a comparative price for the kit,

No one will be able to give you a meaningful comparison price because every house is unique and the price depends on various factors. The easiest thing would be to get a cost estimate for a "normal" shell construction and then compare it with the kit price.

Double burden and if it takes 2-3 months longer, that’s not so bad.

All friends and acquaintances are informed and no one here has said it’s free of charge.

You count on 2-3 months if you build with a general contractor... building yourself, I would reckon 9 - 12 months - gut feeling!

Who is doing the organizational planning? Who arranges material delivery? Can "friend Lars" prepare the electrical in 3 days within 2 weeks, so that "friend Hannes" can start plastering (if he’s not just on a fishing vacation or has back pain)... What if friend Lars is stressed and cannot do it, what does Hannes do without electrical work?
Zacharias promised completely different things, but he is currently unreachable (promised another friend...) then you can quickly turn one year into 18 months, but then with different manufacturing costs, because it was actually planned differently...
And from the way it sounds here, the manufacturing of the house will proceed, just a bit slower.
And nobody does anything for free anyway, so what is being saved?
Painting and small stuff you can do yourself with the family - that will be exhausting enough - afterwards you will need a break. Let the important things be done by professionals - my advice!

Not to forget the warranty ...