Stress-free building - Who has tips or experiences on how to do it?

Don't build, but buy something new (1-3 years old). However, in my opinion, that is the most expensive of all options...

Why should buying be more expensive than building? I don't understand that.

Regarding the question "stress-free building," in my opinion, that only works if you don't check results and don't get upset about mistakes or an unattractive implementation.

Of course, you also have to spend a lot of money for stress-free building, but mistakes still happen, since even a site manager never checks as thoroughly as the building owner.

Even though thousands of houses are built every year, it is still quite a complicated structure overall, as many different trades interlock and nowadays, due to the "fast" construction methods, there is hardly any time buffer left. Therefore, building stress-free is quite difficult. However, if you want as little effort as possible for yourself, a good architect who also takes over the construction management helps. Unfortunately, I have experienced that there are few architects who do both a good planning and good and intensive construction management. Since you rarely change the architect during the construction project, it is not so easy to find someone like that. But if you have one, they can take a lot of work/stress and also decisions off your hands. Ultimately, you should invest a lot of time and familiarize yourself with the subject matter to know what you are deciding about. Even the best architect cannot read minds or foresee the future. How often have I heard: "If I had known it would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have said yes." If you build with a general contractor/general builder, they usually work for themselves and not primarily for the client. Therefore, you basically always need an expert/site supervisor who supports you and possibly also takes stress off you (e.g., coordination, reminders, etc.).

From my point of view, it is best to thoroughly research your contractual partners beforehand, not just on the Internet but through conversations with previous clients. You get a lot of information and especially indications of what to look out for. The same applies to experts. In addition, you should have good chemistry with your contractual partners. It is much easier to discuss things if you like each other, rather than realizing from the very beginning that you are not on the same wavelength. Then the problems are almost pre-programmed, as there is no construction project where nothing goes wrong.

An independent building expert on site. On site because a freelance expert also has to take care of their reputation and the distances are short.

A sufficient financial cushion beyond the house offer, whether as own contribution or loan, does not matter. We needed about 60,000 more for exterior work, kitchen, painting, and furnishing.

Don’t think too small-scale, Aldi [is wieder nach dem Hausbau] , think in 500 euro steps during the construction. (Assuming a financial cushion)

In my opinion, we built stress-free, we didn’t lift a finger on the house or the exterior work but had everything done.

We did not spend our time after work on the construction site.

Who has tips on how to build with as little stress as possible?

Many thanks & regards
unser_schloss

What do you understand by stress-free? In my opinion, we also built stress-free, there were no unsolvable problems and nothing went wrong. However, that does not mean that we were not on the construction site almost every day, checked EVERYTHING and measured again, etc. The individual trades were discussed in detail on site; for example, I visited the tiler every day and we talked about the laying (there are always many options), that’s how everything worked out. However, if by "stress-free" you mean that you don’t have to take care of anything until the handover of the keys, then that definitely doesn't work, or the end result will certainly not be exactly as desired.

Best regards
Sabine

I estimate the savings compared to the "stress-free" approach at €120,000.

How can you save €120k on construction-related services? At a high hourly rate of €100, that amounts to 150 person-days. We handled it like Egon did. However, as bibo has already pointed out, this requires a lot of trust.

From my point of view, the best thing is to inform yourself very well about your contractual partners beforehand and not (only) via the internet, but through conversations with previous homeowners.

I would like to emphasize this once again, as it is, in my opinion, the most important thing.

My colleague took a year before building her house and invited over 20 homeowners for coffee. The results of the conversations were almost always tears from the female homeowner and embarrassed silence from the male homeowner. And only in very few cases did the words "on budget" and "on schedule" come up. And only with those did she ask for further contacts to homeowners and ultimately found two or three "suitable" architects and builders.
With one of them, we (and of course she) eventually built and were even under budget and only a few days behind schedule.

Therefore: talk, ask, probe further. Not just at the garden fence but in the living room. Usually, that’s when all the problems come to light. There are plenty of friends of friends and colleagues of colleagues who have recently built. So you just have to dare.
In the case described, by the way, not a single nationwide (expensive) builder or prefabricated house builder made it into the final selection... So to initially narrow down the selection, it might help to search homepages for phrases like “We take orders between Kleinmuggendorf in the south and Hohenwiggelhausen in the north.”