Waiting time for floor plans and offers

Therefore my question: On average, how long did you have to wait until you could develop a floor plan and a project with a provider, resulting in a first offer?

I've been thinking all the time whether we should still contact an architect.

If I interpret the headline and the opening post correctly, you only contacted the companies to indicate that you were interested; and now you expect to be invited to floor plan development discussions, from which then each provider should develop their offer?
Well, we know from that there is already a plot of land. Do the companies you contacted also know that, or are you perhaps quietly buried under other "have only made initial contact" notes? – in that case, the natural course of events would be that they come back to you only during downtime.

Contacting an architect would clearly be the royal road in my opinion, so the first choice. Especially because of the two-lot building plot, you would overwhelm the draftsman, but also because you need to be taken by the hand, your own planner is indispensable. Several forum users have also already contacted me – either way, you seem to need a guide.

Whether with an architect or otherwise, you need one building design that has to be found or developed. In three initial meetings – where currently everyone is tending to delay until a "normality after Corona" develops – you would otherwise develop three building designs as the basis for offers, so ultimately already at the design level compare apples, pears, and oranges – combined with also at the construction service description level different bases. With that, in the end, you have sums from which, as known, only fools cut ;-)

A "common denominator" really earns the name comparison much more. If the design is developed with an architect, you immediately gain the person who also knows or can find the suitable contractors and can also provide construction management.

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

I’ll put it this way: at the moment it's still May, so I’m not yet under pressure from coordinating vacations. If you want to build a roof over your head, then – even if it may be a nice one – the timeline must be kept. The time might already be a little tighter for extra rounds of smart-reading about seventy-seven different heating technologies – so I hope that in various details you will trust the respective specialists. That you have generally contacted GCs allows the conclusion that you are not hardcore building fashion maniacs who are particular about every little frill ;-)

Everything went very quickly for us. The first ideas to even build something came in November 2020. In December, we developed the floor plan and contacted various companies. From the beginning, it was made clear that they would only be shortlisted if we finished by fall 2021. This ruled out all prefab house providers, as they could only start in fall 2021. Still in December, we received the first offers. We then decided on a company, signed the contract in January, and made some changes to the floor plan. In February, we submitted the building application and received approval in March. Then it could have started, but Corona delayed everything by 2 weeks.
The demolition has been going on for 3 weeks (we gutted it ourselves), today everything is gone and the pit filled up, construction starts on Monday. I am optimistic that we will move in by fall.

that is of course really extraordinarily fast... I don’t even expect something like that ;)

We had a similar initial meeting with all providers. During this, our wishes were taken into account; we showed up with a floor plan template that should be adapted to our needs. We have no extraordinary expectations, we want a very solid, reasonable solid house with about 160 sqm. Everyone also knows that a plot exists, they received the necessary measurements including location plan. Everyone told us that our timing expectations for the start of construction were realistic and that we could be served as customers. Our concrete ideas were also "praised," so I actually thought that things would move a bit faster there. Basically, at first it was helpful for us to get input from different sides since everyone made certain remarks that advanced us in our personal idea development. We generally want to do less ourselves on the house and simply have no prior experience with such a project, so it initially sounded more sensible to put the whole thing in the hands of a general contractor. But slowly some slight doubts are arising in me. And now the idea of an architect comes into play connected with the fear that this might make the costs a bit less controllable.

And this is where the idea of an architect comes into play, combined with the fear that this will make the costs a bit less controllable.

Since you are online right now, before I deal with other aspects, a quick question about this point: how / why do you fear this?

We contacted 13 local architects. Nine of them showed no interest or will only have availability to start planning in a year. We had personal meetings with four and then decided on one. The first phone call was in September, the excavator is coming next week.

Since you are online right now, before I deal with other aspects, first a quick question on this point: through what / why do you fear this?

To be honest, I can't really explain it. Just a feeling.
Are there even fixed prices with the architect? Honestly, I haven't really dealt with that yet, as it hasn't really been an issue for us so far.