Waiting time for floor plans and offers

Hello everyone,

At the end of March, we had initial talks with various providers. However, we have only received one offer (and further appointments) from one provider. At the first contact, everyone immediately said that it would take a little while because demand is currently so high.
Therefore, my question: How long did you have to wait on average until you were able to develop a floor plan and a project with a provider, resulting in a first offer?
I am slowly but surely becoming impatient, as we would like to start building next spring.

Do you already have a plot of land? Without that, you can’t really create anything serious.

In our case, we still had the notary appointment ahead of us. But for the financing, I already needed something, which is why I had already started looking for construction companies. The first offer came to me quite quickly. Then it got slow. Change requests or inquiries for additional charges sometimes took one to two weeks to come through. Floor plan drafts only started after the notary contract was finalized. Even the general contractor pressured so that it went relatively quickly. So within 4 weeks, we went through three versions including several detailed variants (staircase window).

We already have a plot of land that is completely paid off.

Basically, there is still enough time until next spring, but if it keeps going at this pace.... :(

We had an appointment with the architect in February for the planning of the extension and indicated that the targeted start of construction should be in spring 2022 - we expect to receive the first plans in July according to the current status, if the other construction sites do not unexpectedly require more capacity. So currently, I would not expect a high speed for freely planned construction projects.

Hello everyone,

At the end of March, we had initial conversations with various providers. However, we only received one offer (and further appointments) from one provider. At first contact, all of them immediately said that it would take a little while because demand is currently so high.
Therefore my question: How long did you have to wait on average until you were able to develop a floor plan and a project with a provider, so that this resulted in a first offer?
I am slowly but surely getting impatient, as we would like to start building next spring.

It varies. We contacted about 10 providers (large and small) and had more or less personal conversations with them. With the first, we received a floor plan which we used as a basis for further discussions and developed it further. Everything started about a year ago. In September 2020, we then gave a construction company the go-ahead. The building application was submitted in December 2020. A project contract was concluded in which only the planning phase is paid for, but at the same time a commitment to a work contract was given. Now we are almost finished with the final selection (today’s last appointment: bathroom). The work contract will soon be concluded (prices from last year’s offer remain fixed). The building permit (due to the conversion of the property) is expected to come in mid/end of July 2021.

In the end, we decided on a regional provider who has neither a show house nor glossy brochures. Also, hardly any advertising. He gets all his new orders through word of mouth.

If we could submit the building notification (which should be sufficient for us) by the end of the year, I would be completely satisfied. It is still quite within the realm of possibility.

We have contacted three regional companies and one supra-regional company and have had an initial conversation with all of them.

I keep wondering whether we should contact an architect as well.