What is the maximum cost my property can have?

Hello everyone,

so far we have had so-called initial meetings with various national general contractors / prefabricated house providers. However, they were somehow all disappointing and not very helpful, because – in summary – we don’t have a plot of land. Accordingly, all providers held back a lot when it came to naming / estimating any prices or wanted to get us to sign a contract for work in order to use the company-internal land service...

We have therefore decided to first look for a plot and then continue talking with some providers. Now the question for me is, what is the maximum price our plot may cost? Maybe you can help me roughly estimate the construction costs; the calculators or formulas I’ve found so far are too general, not transparent enough, and sometimes produce extremely different results.

The most common formula here in the forum:
sqm * 1800 + 50000 incidental costs

Now to our requirements / wishes:
- approx. 145 sqm living space massive (stone on stone, whichever stone)
- 1.5 stories with gable roof
- bedroom, 2 children’s rooms, 1 small office
- open architecture kitchen/living/dining room
- controlled residential ventilation
- fireplace (at least prepared)
- home automation (at least prepared, wired in a star topology)
- LAN cables in all rooms
- electric shutters
- underfloor heating
- terrace, 2 parking spaces and paved access to the house
- upscale bathroom fittings
- gas or air-water heat pump (I haven’t looked into it yet, honestly)

Otherwise, simple architecture without many corners / frills, I could imagine a dormer because we are not fans of slanted windows.

Furniture and lamps do not need to be calculated; we will probably need a kitchen, which must also be included in the budget.

We want to lay floors and walls ourselves, i.e. only the material needs to be calculated.

Regarding the plot, there are 2 options:
- flat plot without significant additional earthwork costs for the slab, but then with a ground plan. Garage with additional storage at the back
- sloped plot with basement (approx. 80K, taken from another thread), accordingly a smaller house

Our budget is 450K all in, including the plot with all additional costs and kitchen, this should actually work, my gut tells me. We are building in NRW, within 50 km of Cologne.

How much may a plot cost that will be built with a slab?
How much may the sloped plot cost?
Can you help me roughly put our requirements into a formula?

I’m aware that there is a lot of crystal ball reading involved, but somewhere you have to start independently, right? Normally I would now go to an architect and ask him for a rough cost estimate, but now the case has arisen that we might have to react quickly to a relatively expensive plot. Also, practical experience certainly doesn’t hurt as additional information.

So, many thanks in advance, sorry for the novel and best regards

Bo

Take 2000 EUR per sqm. "Our budget is 450K all in, including the land with all additional costs and kitchen, actually this should work, my gut tells me. We are building in NRW, within 50KM around Cologne." <--- works if you get the land almost for free

So we are planning something similar to you in a rather rural area in Baden-Württemberg near Karlsruhe (30 km away). We are looking at at least a 500k plot of land (120k including incidental costs) plus the house. However, we are not planning with home automation, without controlled residential ventilation, but with a basement. Kitchen and outdoor facilities etc. are not included yet. Therefore, I think that the budget with what is listed above is not sufficient.

You have already gathered a lot to make an assumption. Why don't you calculate it yourself?

145 * 1800 = 261K€
Additional construction costs 50K€
Floor/paint materials 10K€
Controlled residential ventilation 12K€
Kitchen 10K€
Outside the essentials 15K€
Carport/finished garage 10K€
===
368K€

Remaining 82K€ for the land and incidental acquisition costs, which ideally amount to ~8.5%, more with a broker. About 75.5K€ would be left for the land based on the assumptions above.

How much may a plot of land cost that is built on with a slab foundation? How much may the hillside plot cost? Can you help me roughly put our requirements into a formula?

I would try to get a feel for it in your place by looking at developer offers (at the construction site, otherwise the transferability is lacking) that are roughly comparable in size and standard. As a rough formula, "rule of thumb" is not bad at all – however, opinions differ on whether the budget has to be calculated as four or three and a half thumbs to cushion budget overruns. Hillside plots must, simply put, be at least as much cheaper as they require the slab foundation to be laid more elaborately "in the water" and founded deeper on the valley side. In this sense, I would simply equate two meters of height difference under the footprint to one hundred percent of the basement costs.

145 * 1800 = 261K€
Construction additional costs 50K€
Flooring/Painting materials 10K€
Controlled residential ventilation 12K€
Kitchen 10K€
Outside the essentials 15K€
Carport/Prefabricated garage 10K€
===
368K€

You forgot the luxurious bathroom fittings, which I still estimate with an additional charge from 20,000.

Honestly: do you want marble installed, a round whirlpool tub, or golden faucets? A sink from Boffi?