The developer requires a down payment to start drawing

However, at this amount, it is not comprehensible to me.

I boldly claim that an architect, who draws daily and knows everything by heart, spends max 8 hours on such a project.

Hourly rate approx. 60 eur results in just under 500 eur for me.

o_O

I boldly claim that even a good one, or especially because of that, needs 40 hours.
Intellectual property needs time!

However, that is a net value from the year 2001.

That means the house you want is in his program, just smaller; and you don't want it as a "city villa," but with a converted pitched attic on top? Only a few things can be "simply" changed in a construction proposal from the brochure (standard design): relocating non-load-bearing interior walls, extending along the ridge axis, increasing the floor or knee wall height, increasing the roof pitch; and of course reversing the deactivation of the basement, then it goes down under the stairs instead of into a broom closet. All further changes require more or less a thorough redesign. Your description secondly sounds more demanding than what the experienced housewife could handle easily, and first of all still unnecessary for the purpose of a price comparison. Moreover, the plans are only very limitedly suitable for a price comparison: the construction specifications have it in themselves, one can build a house from the same approved plans for 80 or 140 percent of the price (and conversely, a completely different-looking house of the same size and equipment for the same price). Incidentally: although not as a link, you could at least tell us the model name of the house you like so much. Why should the house actually become significantly larger than its "template," do you have more children? - if the motive is rather to "treat" yourself to the largest possible scoop of concrete gold: then I recommend a cure in the form of a beneficial infection with the philosophy of .

So is it normal for you that you just shell out 4,000 euros with every general contractor? Without knowing whether the result meets your expectations?!

Then architects must be better paid than IT specialists/programmers..