Property developer or independent architect

Incredible how the profit of the GUs is speculated, but a number is just mentioned like that. The next one sees it as definitely given! By the way, the architect also gets paid. I do think that the cost of a good service should not be decisive for who you build with. Both have to be paid because that is their work they have to live from. GUs usually have more employees.

Sorry, I actually didn’t mean profit, but 60,000€ for themselves AND their expenses/work. This figure, which does not come from me (!), I wanted to compare to the mentioned 45,000€ for the architect. However, for one and the same house with a given building specification, we have indeed received offers that differed by up to 80,000€! Without any visible differences to us! Although we didn’t even inquire with the reportedly most expensive companies! That means, if one assumes that the general contractor who stayed grounded is satisfied with 20,000€ profit, then other candidates would already have an estimated 100,000€. If they really cost 80,000€ more, then they are doing something wrong... I believe the market allows for this. I even know people who are building with such companies. Richly inherited and then went with the motto "lots of money must help a lot." Well, what can you say? They’ve had more problems so far than others who paid only half with Town & Country (for a smaller house, of course). Do I want to give a general recommendation for cheap or expensive general contractors with this? No, but a recommendation for the transparency of an architect or construction supervisor.

In our new development area, everyone building with architects constantly has long waiting times because the craftsmen have no available slots.

Those building with GUs start much later, but then things progress rapidly. Let's see how it goes for us.

Ok, that's true, GUs have reserved quotas with their subs in advance and can sometimes start right away.

But the lead time of the GUs is really tough. Ours has increased its lead time from contract signing to start of construction from 9 months to 15 months. [emoji15]

Yes, but not across the board. For us, it was also 12 months from "Hello, here we are and would like to work with you" and 4 months from signing the contract. But we also have neighbors who only had to wait a short time for the building permit with the general contractor, and then it went straight ahead. Or take Town & Country, there the promise, I believe, is 4 weeks from signing. As much as I've been annoyed in recent months that nothing is progressing: I also have to say that we would have done many things differently if it had started right away. Now we had many months to think everything through quite thoroughly. With such a large investment, that's not so bad.