Realistic financial planning for KFW40 prefabricated house?

THANK YOU for all your contributions, that helps me a lot to bring in more realism.

Only for the tiles? Seems like way too much. There are also seamless solutions without any tiles at all.

Not just for tiles, I meant that as a general buffer for the bathroom. I think it adds up quickly (walk-in shower, somewhat better bathroom cabinets, mounted washbasins...)

Too little. Just the upgrading for more burners and sockets will cost €2000.
A smart home starts at €20,000. Probably more. But if you just want some boring app-stuff, it can be cheaper.
Read through the countless threads in the electrical section of the forum.

Ok, thanks! Yes, I think then I will have to remove the smart home post or rename it to "Additional sockets".

Could fit, but it could also be multiple times that depending on the geotechnical report. Excavation is always a high-risk item.

Otherwise, I consider the rest of €13,000 incidental construction costs to be too low.

You don’t need a garage?

How much would you estimate for incidental construction costs?
True, I should also plan for the garage.

Why a prefab house? It’s neither cheaper nor faster than a "conventional" build.
Personally, I think prefab houses must have floor plans that you personally like. Any changes are often disproportionately expensive.
If you want something special, an architect is definitely better.

THAT is a very good question and made me think again! Just as you said, I assumed prefab houses are cheaper/faster. But honestly, I was also one-sidedly informed. Timber frame construction is important to me (massive construction is, in my opinion, problematic climate-wise). I need to see if I can find a good non-prefab house provider there.

What exactly wasn’t specific enough?

The question of what costs you have to expect for which service. We visited Haas, Bien-Zenker, Allkauf Haus and Okal Haus. They all showed prepared floor plans and "special offer houses," which were clearly loss leaders and didn’t fit our wishes at all. Questions like "How expensive would it be to build that as KFW40+ with a basement? How expensive would an additional bay window be?" were answered with "We have to calculate that concretely… after you sign our customer contract." Haas was still the best and at least gave rough estimates.
We know the sample selection game already... At least a catalog with included options / special options would be customer-oriented. But of course that’s a pious wish, I realize this isn’t about customer orientation :-D

Hello, my very personal assessment. I just went through some prefab house companies and can contribute a little regarding prices.

If I take out the earthworks for the basement and add them to incidentals, you come to €63k including demolition and basement works!
I would estimate it to be rather €65-70k (depending on your land) excluding the demolition.

Great, thanks a lot!

€70k for a simple basement fits.

For a basement with white tank as well?

Could be, but I assume you have to make do with the absolutely most modest things without amenities.
In houses there are things you don’t realize aren’t standard. That’s why you quickly find things you want to change. Also, model home parks mostly have houses with above-average equipment you shouldn’t be fooled by.

Oh yes, those model home parks had barely any "applicable" information content for me...

From KFW 40 to 40+ you additionally need:

Photovoltaic with battery (minimal version) about €10,000–12,000
Controlled ventilation with heat recovery €8,000–10,000
Visualization for power consumption, no idea.

Great, thanks for the assessment!

What is that supposed to mean?
For enlargement? Shutters? Additional windows?

Yes, that’s hard to say since it’s unclear what’s included as standard… Also depends on the floor plan. But I assume we won’t be satisfied with it and will need to invest more; that’s what this buffer is for. We’d like a few floor-to-ceiling windows, anthracite. A corner window or roof window would be a dream, but anything above the €5,000 buffer would just be cut out.

Depends on what the €/m² in the standard costs and how many m² you need. That’s relatively easy to calculate once you have the plans. But €20,000 extra just for bigger tiles is too much in my opinion.

Thanks! Yes, I was a bit unspecific; it’s a "general bathroom buffer" from which wash cabinets, walk-in shower etc. can also be financed.

A bit more detailed information would be helpful. Everything depends on what’s included in the standard and what you expect.
If the standard includes a boring beech staircase, then €2000 is not enough for a staircase with oak risers without stringer.

I think so too :-D But as said: The prefab house providers were not very informative… For the staircase most include just a standard beech version. How expensive our ideas would be (cf. pictures) "we’ll have to see at the sample selection."

Simple radio-controlled smart blinds cost €2000.
Proper, simple smart home as already said starts at at least €20,000 up to....

Thanks. Yes, then it will probably just be more sockets… and maybe smart blinds…

Use your budget as best as possible for a well-thought-out rectangular floor plan, you’ll have much more benefit from that than from some architectural gimmicks that bring you no advantage.

Yes, good point… at the beginning you always dream a bit ;-) As Tassimat pointed out, it might be an alternative NOT to build a prefab house but instead with a small local company.

I wouldn’t recommend a knee wall 140 as a "minimum," but as a maximum (see "How the knee wall influences the window question in the attic"), and the combination "hip roof and knee wall" is difficult to build and tends steeply towards being unaffordable.
The monotony-mainstream nature of many houses often comes exactly from the desperate attempts to design originality into them. Balconies just as decoration are of little use and furthermore counterproductive to avoiding a full floor in the attic. A bay window of 3 x 1 m easily costs as much as 8 normal square meters or more; including integrating a row of dancing building parts into the thermal envelope (and the regularly associated statics stuff) leads to hefty additional costs. Better to do a partial brick cladding or something similar.
For sculptural building gimmicks I see "no space" in a 130 sqm house, you only get that in at least half a hundred more square meters.

I’m 1.80 m tall and regularly bumped my head against the roof slope as a teenager (…and now please no "you notice that" jokes :p).
We could build two full floors. So I was thinking of either a full floor with a hip or gable roof or a knee wall with a gable roof. Apparently you pay less for knee wall + gable roof…

Thanks also for your assessment of the bay window. I don’t like those everywhere identical white "shoeboxes." It looks like cheap prefab house standard. But I realize now that this supposedly cheap prefab house standard is already becoming expensive for us :-D I’ll probably have to come back down to earth…

Thanks to you all for your input!
Do you think with a timber frame house that isn’t prefab we would get a better price?
We know an architect and a landscape engineer in our circle of acquaintances (the latter also familiar with VoBB). Maybe we should award trades ourselves instead of planning turnkey? I just don’t know if we would save anything in the end, as there will certainly be more problems with that (tradespeople don’t come, aren’t finished on time, follow-up projects get delayed etc.).

Do you think we’ll come out cheaper with a wooden frame house that isn’t a prefabricated house?

You can’t really say that in general. For one person, the promotional house from whoever is the cheapest because they don’t want to upgrade much; for another, the architect is the cheapest because a particularly great staircase has to be included (see your picture 2). I can only advise you to first put aside those glossy internet pictures and focus on the important things like the floor plan. Especially if the budget is tight, you absolutely have to prevent falling in love with a €10,000 staircase (just guessing, I know nothing about stairs). The shown staircases also have to fit architecturally. Large open areas are required for that. Thus, higher construction costs in general because it requires a lot of space. As I said, that quickly turns into architectural playfulness. Look at the boring floor plans of the prefabricated house providers and think about what you like, what you can still accept, and where you absolutely want to see expensive changes.

After 2.5 years of hopping from model home park to model home park and conducting initial consultations, the advice "inquire with regional/local companies" was by far the most valuable.

After 2.5 years of model home park hopping and initial meetings, the advice "inquire with regional/local companies" was by far the most valuable.

I sometimes wonder how some people operate here. From first contact to moving in, only 19 months have passed for us.

A few thoughts from someone currently building themselves (for the second time):

- €2,500 / sqm should be seen as a minimum in Bavaria.
- Insulation is significantly easier to manage with timber frame construction than with solid construction.
- depending on the terrain and use, a larger possibly house makes more sense than one with a basement.
- both construction methods are priced at a similar level with the same equipment.
- the providers you mentioned do not play in the league of the top German house builders. (Just google a bit on this)
- Knee wall 1.4m and gable roof is easily possible and is certainly cheaper than two full floors with a hip roof.
- Keep the floor plan as simple as possible and first determine how many rooms are needed for what purpose and in what size. The times when you could simply build and have two or three additional rooms just like that are unfortunately over.
- most potential for price explosions or savings lies in the floor plan

Regarding the companies you mentioned, one I don't know one was inflexible one was so stable that when the children jump upstairs, the kitchen cabinet below wobbles one had turnkey defined in such a way that it takes a long time before the moving truck arrives. Set up your room program and what you want. The closer the construction service description is to your wishes, the further you will get