Single-family house – new construction project from day one - and the planning begins

How are your house building plans going?

You can probably fiddle with the floor plan forever and everything always has pros and cons. Even afterwards, we’re not sure what was right and what wasn’t.
By the way, our living room is significantly less deep than you are planning, and we can comfortably sit four of us in front of the TV.
But for us, that was a necessary compromise and not a dream solution.

Otherwise, I find it impressive how much effort you put into getting offers. Based on our floor plan, we had quotes made by 2 prefab house manufacturers and 2 solid builders, and all 4 offers were in a range between 450k and 470k. Our desired budget was 400k, by the way, so none of them could even remotely meet that. Nobody said they could significantly reduce the price either. A 500€ sample voucher, okay...
In the end, we even took the most expensive offer because the level of equipment probably justified the price difference and especially because we knew satisfied builders.
And of course because the chemistry and everything else was right.

And what I also found interesting overall in your thread.
I also often thought, who’s supposed to be able to pay for this...
But compared to you: we are paying a total volume of 1 million with comparable income. And we have so far inherited nothing. So there is still a lot of room above your price expectation.
And unfortunately, we also have by far not the equipment you desire.

Where this is going, I can tell you too.
In our area, several row houses with about 200 sqm of land, 110 sqm of living space without a basement and without carport and the VERY SIMPLEST equipment were recently sold for 650k. There were quite quickly enough interested buyers.
I also never would have thought that I would build a house without electric shutters, where my parents already equipped all windows with electric shutters 20 years ago.
But in our area, that is not so noticeable because you actually first have to be able to afford shutters at all. Our previous residences didn’t have shutters at all...
So everything is always relative...

Thank you very much for your kind words and your interest

We have now received an offer from four providers based on the floor plans in #200. The offers differ significantly and range between 45,000 EUR and around 100,000 EUR above our budget with the same floor plan and almost identical equipment.

We have now limited ourselves to three providers. Today we have a final appointment with provider #3 (far right column), who wants to explain his figures to us in detail. The price is still "negotiable" - whatever that may mean.



Meanwhile, we are quite relaxed and have accepted that we will have to ask the bank for a small increase or alternatively replace the garage with a carport. It is pleasing that our initial favorite now also offers the apparently lowest price (far left column). We want to sleep on it again until the weekend and then decide on one of the three providers.

Then in the coming weeks, we will move into detailed planning. Separately, we have already approached the building authority with our preliminary planning to explore the chances for a building permit. Special case for us: The development plan is currently still being created but is supposed to be strongly based on the original new development area above us.

We are already very happy with the floor plan except for a few minor details that were also discussed here. Initially, it was about having a planning basis for the offers. I think we will continue to refine it further during the detailed planning.

Otherwise, the current schedule looks like this:
- Beginning of September 2020: decision on construction partner and conclusion of planning contract
- by October 2020: written reservation of the plot and then soil survey + surveying
- by December 2020: purchase of the plot, completion of detailed planning, and conclusion of construction financing
- by no later than February 2021: submission of the building application
- July/August 2021: start of construction
- December 2021: ideally moving in

We have not compared that many providers with each other. I believe we had 7 initial talks with different providers but then only continued talks with 4 providers, which were very valuable for us regarding floor plan planning and specification of special features.

However, the topic of house construction has really been omnipresent since February. But it’s also fun, and you get the feeling that with each day you get deeper into the subject.

Yes, I also find it totally crazy how prices have moved nowadays. One of the providers told us that three years ago we could have built an identical house for around 50,000 EUR less - not exactly encouraging.

The thing with the panoramic fireplace will not work well (if the pipe stays there as drawn)!

the thing with the panoramic fireplace won’t work well (if the pipe stays there as shown)!

If we determine this in detailed planning with the architect, there will be a smaller fireplace, it will be placed elsewhere, or we will leave it out entirely. We are not emotionally attached to the panoramic fireplace.

The choice of the chimney should already be decided beforehand, as the path of the chimney pipe (and that of the ventilation pipe if you choose that variant) through the upper floor can cause problems. You can always make it smaller later.

We also moved the chimney pipe 70 cm backwards later to allow for a larger passage into the living room. This made a steel beam necessary, which shifted the door to the bedroom.
If a steel beam has to be installed for you as well, it will run directly through the dressing room!

5 months of construction time until moving in is very short. Was this promised to you like that?