Single-family house - is a discount over 10% realistic?

Hello,

we have requested offers from several GCs for the construction of a single-family house.

One of the losing bidders has now significantly improved his offer again and offered us a price reduction of more than 10% to underbid the competing offer. In addition, he has added further services free of charge (e.g. enlargement of the floor plan, better insulation, electric shutters, ...) to match the scope of services of the competitor.

I think, all in all, the discount is around 15...20%.

Is something like this realistically possible at all, or do you end up paying the very good price with poor quality and/or an insolvent GC?

My alarm bells went off. The industry has a lot to do and defensive offers are more common.

Somewhere I once read a nice slogan...

"Who gives a discount later has added it on beforehand" More or less paraphrased

In the end, the discount is just "the extra added on."

Phew... since he was already cheaper than the others anyway, I would be very cautious too!

For example, I didn't receive a single offer where more than 1% discount was included in the end.

a burnt GU fishing for customers?

I think like this then. Why doesn’t he seriously make an offer right away? Does he want to pull a fast one on me first? Does he want to cheat me? What’s the point, if he can do it cheaper, he should do it immediately. Not only when the chances are gone! And shouldn’t I also ask the other competitor to recalculate now to be fair? Do I want this circus? I wouldn’t agree to it, but would talk seriously and final with the other one again. And namely like this, Mr. xy, we want to build our house with you. Your offer and our financial possibilities are close to each other. We would now like to have a final conversation with the following points. Where do you still see saving potential? Where could you still come a little bit to meet us? Which things need to be clarified for the building permit? The following details are still open.... In this final conversation for example our general contractor still offered a total of about 10 thousand by installing Polish instead of local windows and doors, by recalculating the roof, by granting a 3% discount for payment of the installments within eight days.