Reference current construction prices / Build now or wait?

The main contractor should, first of all, also be from the region, and secondly be a partner and not a "pimp" of the subcontractors.

Isn’t a pimp exactly what you describe at the very bottom? :-)

Forty, most of whom you know: how do they divide into the factions of turnkey main contractors, shell main contractors, individual contracts with or without architect/tendering?

Currently, it is estimated that 15-20 of the 40 plots are being built on.
- Two of them are with a large solid house manufacturer
- Four or five with a regional main contractor (located in the immediate neighborhood...). This main contractor is a draftsman (one-man company) who designs houses and in the end does nothing different than we do (organizing trades). He only looks at the construction sites from the outside :-) But he has a good reputation with us and builds relatively cheaply.
- One house is built in timber frame construction (the guy organizes everything himself – he works at a tool manufacturer)
- Then there are two solid houses that are about as advanced as ours and organize the trades themselves – one of the two contributes a huge amount of own work. He and his wife are basically always on the construction site (she: teacher, he: IT guy :-) ). For example, they do the screed themselves. That would be way too risky for me.
- One has just started – I only recently met him – I don’t know how he planned or who organizes it – he told me anyway that he helps as an unskilled worker
- The rest I cannot assign – there are still 2-3 houses being built with local construction companies – but I haven’t had the chance to talk to the builders yet
- The only – complete – architect-designed house is our direct neighbor below us – but he is an architect himself.

I would say it is rather unusual here that a house is completely planned and carried out by an architect. We also spoke with a total of three architects where none really convinced us (except the one who made our plan – he always left us the option that he would take over parts of the project if needed).

The building area is in southern Bavaria.

As you can often read from me here (with keywords like self-awarding, individual awarding, tendering, Gerddieter, and the like): my usual case is an architect with tendering, to which main contractors are also allowed to participate. See also my well-known originally five-part house construction roadmap, which is currently being updated. The main contractors are often already met during the resting phase with decisive steering.

I think that’s good and I can easily imagine it if you have the right architect at hand. In the end, you are relying on the skills of one person and it should really fit well. For example, our architect was pretty good but regularly unreachable and had too many projects in parallel. He implemented everything top-notch. But if I now have an architect who I pay 20-30k for, my expectation is that he is almost always reachable and solves my problems quickly.

That is not generally true. There are quite a few craftsmen who are such total failures in terms of business and marketing that they would be nearly penniless without main contractors. The big-name main contractors usually have a good knack for recruiting such candidates and taking advantage of them. Even when I was still in training age, it was tried to counteract this with instruments like the "business economist in crafts," with mixed success. But there are at least as many craftsmen who are entrepreneurial fit themselves; and some whom you hardly find as main contractor subcontractors; but also some who are quasi “civil servants” at main contractors. Main contractors and craftsmen, that is a pretty colorful scene.

I’m with you on that. I believe that if someone is a complete business failure, they might also be overwhelmed by thinking through a complex trade (e.g., heating, ventilation, electricity, shell construction). But sure, main contractors can make up ground over such people.

we will do it exactly like you …
in a year we will be wiser.
it will work out.
the craftsmen in town, with a very good reputation, I believe have no interest in delivering crap or "pulling a fast one" as it is almost accused to everyone here in the forum …

Wow, that's really not the image that everyone runs to the architect and has the ready-to-move-in house built for at least €3,500/m², where in the end you only have to fill the refrigerator...

The charming thing about the general contractor (GU) is, by the way, primarily the fixed price that is usually agreed upon. That can sometimes go badly wrong with individual contracts if prices unexpectedly skyrocket.

You only have warranty claims against the GU, with individual contracts against about 25 individual trades.

There is a reason why our customers commission us as a GU to build a facility and do not buy the components themselves, even though it would often be much cheaper for them in purchasing... and then get 10 companies to somehow cobble it together...

Isn’t a pimp exactly what you describe at the very bottom?

What I

The big-name GCs usually have a good knack for recruiting such candidates and taking them for a ride.

describe, yes. But at the very bottom I describe

but also those who are practically "civil servants" at GCs.

something different.
Craftsmen who are unfit in business and marketing terms would starve without order procurers. There is a type of GC that acts as a "brothel," and the craftsmen are then the "horses."
The craftsmen who are listed with GCs of the "order procurement office" type and work somewhat like "school in the morning, tutoring in the afternoon" do not belong to the business-unfit type but merely appreciate a safer baseline level of orders. Different types of GCs therefore communicate with different types of craftsmen.

I am of the opinion that if someone is a total commercial failure, they might also be overwhelmed by having to think through a complex trade (e.g., heating, ventilation, electricity, shell construction). But sure, such people allow the GCs to make up ground again.

That is then not complex: the GC’s drafting slave pre-chews the work plans, the craftsman threads pipe elbow 17 through ceiling breakthrough K according to a Lego-set-style instruction and basically works as an unboxing agent who takes a "Binford 6100" off the pallet and screws it tight. For that, thanks to assortments from Würth and the like, he gets entire convenience menus pre-packed like Lufthansa catering ;-)
That is comfortable – the other side of the coin is the de facto piecework wage.

The craftsmen in town, who have a very good reputation, I believe have no interest in delivering crap or “taking people for a ride” as almost everyone here in the forum is accused of …

Intentional "fraudulent" exchanges of poor performance for good money are rare among craftsmen; such birds (see the local butcher shop threads) are more found in the suspect file under the GC category. In contrast, craftsmen with, let's say, nonchalance toward their own "broadly based" mediocrity are no place rare – not even in the most idyllic countryside with the happiest cows.

Taking people for a ride otherwise happens more often in the other direction too: when clients take a leaf from the pimp-GC type and, as sole awarders, hunt cheap unboxers in their territory. Without work instruction plans, that regularly goes wrong unfortunately ;-)

Everything has two sides. With the general contractor (GU), you only have one contact for defects, but only that one. If the GU goes bankrupt, you can't just go to the craftsman because you never had a contract with them. The fixed price is only fixed in the sense that it applies to a specific construction description. Comparing different GU offers is accordingly a lot of hard work, practically impossible for a layperson. In a tender, on the other hand, you get an offer from each provider for exactly your requirements. Budget overruns are just as common in construction with a GU as with an architect, which is why larger buffers for the selection of fixtures are always planned in every financing thread.

The comparability of different GU offers is therefore also a lot of tedious work, actually impossible for laymen.

I would not limit that to laymen.

In contrast, with a tender you get an offer from each provider exactly for your requirements.

That's right. The qualities of tendering and execution communicate as a causal relationship. In addition, a tender avoids the aforementioned tedious task of comparing apples and oranges. If pear offers come in response to an apple tender, the only processing step is "sorting out."