Should the house be planned by a general contractor or architects?

Does the architectural service also come from the general contractor (GC) or did you have a design plan made by the architect and then contacted various GCs?

I am currently facing the same question, as the first drafts from the GCs are not very promising. A few are still open, but somehow I am now tending towards the design planning from the architect. Another advantage would be that you have a uniform plan and can better compare the offers from the different GCs.

This is indeed a problem with the GCs and really annoyed us for a long time because no one could show us a house we liked. In the end, we received a somewhat usable template and developed it into the final draft together over the months. We used PowerPoint for this and always made specifications that the GC could then implement in their program. We saved the money for the architect. In the meantime, we also talked to 2 GCs who, with the help of an architect, had made a design proposal... in the end, a joke and not worth the paper.