Process of construction planning & building - Is a preliminary contract with the construction company necessary?

@ TE as you can see we agree here regarding the procedure. You will not be the first here who is probably confused about taking out the loan without knowing the exact costs. But it is like that, you have to be prepared for something like that and have a good buffer for upgrading & civil engineering work.

Exciting answers... Regarding preliminary sampling: Quite a few companies do that - after all, you need to know what is included and what rough amount of additional costs you might have to expect. And BEFORE making a decision, I wanted to have a binding offer (with floor plan and prices) - everything else is "buying a pig in a poke."

And YES, there are companies that do it exactly like that (including the first floor plan as the basis for the price offer, including preliminary sampling on site).

By the way, we will do exactly the same in these points.

Of course, prices are still missing then. But you have to put something together yourself so that you have an overall view. As others have already mentioned: buffer for additional selections, garage/carport, garden work (including civil engineering for house construction, connections, etc.). Nevertheless, besides the building plot, the house itself usually remains the largest cost factor. And having some "security" there I find important. And that only works if I have worked out a floor plan beforehand - changes are usually associated with (sometimes large) costs.

Which provider did you decide on?

In our case, the building ground survey with foundation recommendation is already carried out at our own expense before signing the contract. That means it is clear where the house will be located (dimensions of the planned footprint & without basement in our case are also fixed), and now the 2 soundings are being done there. With the foundation recommendation, we can already record during the offer preparation that earthworks and foundation costs correspond to the actual circumstances and are not just based on the very limited inclusive service of the construction specification. Because besides the sample selection, the foundation is probably the biggest cost trap.

Many providers now also offer preliminary sampling, i.e. a non-binding visit to the sampling center. This is also important because what use is it if tiles up to €35/sqm are included, but in the sampling center fantasy prices well above wholesale prices are called for and one only realizes far too late that the inclusive equipment is "worthless". (This was offered to us by 2 prefab house providers, but now we are building with a local house builder, where each trade will probably be sampled separately with the executing craftsman in the wholesale.)

Regarding the preliminary sampling: Quite a few companies do that – after all, you need to know what is included and what rough estimate of additional costs you might have to expect.

Who would that be? At the very beginning, we also visited a few turnkey builders, and some didn’t even want to hand over the construction performance description before signing...

In our case, the offer for a preliminary visit to the sampling center was available at Bien-Zenker and Rötzer Ziegel Element Haus.