Preparation model house park

Hello everyone,

we have decided to build, a plot with a hillside location is available. Next week we will go for the first time to a model home park in Bad Vilbel. The floor plan has already been roughly created in my head, accordingly we will first approach the house providers that come very close to this.

What tips do you have for me on what I should pay attention to? What questions should I ask the respective salesperson, etc.? I don’t want to dive into the building world completely unprepared :)

Depending on the slope of the site, a prefabricated house provider may not necessarily be the right address. Otherwise, this is just your first getting-to-know-each-other.. you won't be jumping straight into planning, will you? Then it depends on what really interests you... wall constructions, installed brands, the general process and earliest possible dates, building services engineering...

At the beginning, there is first the selection of the house type, the room sizes (usually in show houses the sqm of the room is indicated somewhere behind the door), the desired extras, etc. In the process, you look at the executed quality, the components used in the show house parks, and collect initial brochures, etc. You can have long conversations with the salespeople, but you don't have to yet.
As soon as you know what type of house it should be (basement?) and you know how many sqm you want to build roughly, you can slowly start getting first offers. Preferably broken down with the prices of the extras, which usually works as well. This way, you get a feel for the extra prices and can consider whether you want them.

We were 3 times in the show house park without ever having spoken to a salesperson even once. We got inspired there regarding stair color, window size, bathroom layout, etc...

Have you already been to the bank to clarify your budget? You already have a plot of land, that is the first question all salespeople ask. It’s best to bring a cadastral map or something similar with you so that during conversations it can be checked how your house type fits there.

There is only one very important tip for the first show house visit: DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING!

Since most prefab house manufacturers today offer custom-designed houses, it doesn’t really matter how the show homes look. They try to appeal to the masses with the show homes because some visitors think that if a manufacturer, for example, has a flat-roof house in the exhibition, they only build flat-roof houses.... (which is why there are never bungalows there, since the market share is too low and the prefab house providers fear that the majority of customers might think they only build bungalows....). In short, how the architecture of the houses in the show home park is can be relatively unimportant to you. Even if a provider presents itself with a red Swedish cottage and you want a modern urban villa, you can still be a match.

Much more important are the details that you don’t immediately pay attention to at the beginning. First and foremost among them is certainly the wall construction. There are big differences here: vapor open or not, which materials are used for insulation, on the inside with drywall or Fermacell (mounting brackets? soundproofing?). What kind of building technology is used for heating, residential ventilation, etc.? Is the screed floating or dry? Then, of course, it is important to study the construction service descriptions very carefully: which qualities are included as standard, how does it look with healthy living materials and: what is not mentioned??? For example, site setup, toilet, waste disposal, earthworks, etc. You will also find that some providers have a horrendous bad reputation and it is better to keep a wide berth from them.

In short: The show homes in the park are nice to look at, but usually contain a lot of optional extras that have additional costs just like in a car dealership (so not what you get as standard according to the construction service description), but in the end the show homes are not really the benchmark. Rather, collect the construction service descriptions and try to form a judgment with the help of the forum or a building expert. Because, as said at the beginning, most manufacturers can offer you any conceivable house in terms of architecture and interior design; the difference lies in execution and the price-performance ratio.

One more tip: The providers are only really interested in you when you tell them that you already have a plot of land ;-) Otherwise, they tend to think you are Sunday strollers or people who want to get ideas for renovation/interior decoration, etc....