ᐅ New Single-Family Home Construction in Southern Germany
Created on: 18 Nov 2020 00:43
W
WilderSueden
Hello everyone,
after jumping straight into the basement discussion thread, I want to use this one as an introduction and idea-sharing thread. Some things might seem a bit chaotic at first, but that will surely clear up.
We are expecting our first child in February. Since two rooms are obviously too few for the long term, we need something larger. The housing market here in Konstanz is notoriously difficult, so we didn’t spend much time searching here. Thanks to Corona home office, we focused on areas a bit further away right from the start. Initially, we looked mostly at existing properties, but due to the poor condition of what’s on offer, we unexpectedly ended up deciding to build. We were actually lucky to get a plot in a new development area around Stockach-Pfullendorf. The site started being developed this week and will probably be buildable from summer onward.
Here are some key details:
- He/I am 33, work in the software industry, based in Konstanz, from a rural area
- She is 41, a teacher in the Hegau region, from a city that basically doesn’t exist
- One child on the way, no further children planned and unlikely due to her age
- Currently living in about 65sqm (700 sq ft) with 2.5 rooms in a lovely apartment building…
- Basically, we don’t want anything too fancy—no extensive smart home automation, no luxury mansion with marble and so on. Just something solid and nice. We are not building to fulfill a lifelong dream but to avoid renovating an old house worth half a million euros. Plain wallpaper texture and laminate flooring would be fine for us if the quality is good.
- Accordingly, we don’t mind using a “standard” floor plan from a prefabricated house builder or a typical model home.
- That said, since we are building, it should be energy efficient and we don’t want to use concepts that might soon be politically outdated or unsupported.
- Do-it-yourself work only to a limited extent, as we are neither professionals nor do we have relevant contacts. Also, the new house is a bit further away, so working on it in the evening is unlikely. A weekend of painting before moving in is no problem, and after moving in, doing the carport, terrace, and garden ourselves is also fine.
- The construction partner must be reliable.
Plot and financials:
- Plot roughly 700sqm (7,535 sq ft) at 98€ per sqm → 70,000€, fairly rectangular
- 120,000€ equity (with some reserve left)
- Financing and ownership entirely in my name (unmarried and no joint assets intended)
- Planned overall budget about 500,000€
- Target monthly payment 1,500€
- Accordingly, loan to be repaid in 25 years with that rate, with some extra repayments planned mid-term aiming for about 20 years total
Budget breakdown:
- Plot 70,000€
- Ancillary plot costs 5,000€
- Other construction-related fees 60,000€
- Basement 50,000€
- Kitchen 10,000€
- Driveway, carport, terrace as DIY 15,000€
-----
210,000€
Leaves about 290,000€ in the budget for the house itself, which is probably quite tight for what we have planned. The budget still needs to be adjusted with a buffer.
So far, our wishlist looks roughly like this:
- Not excessively large, more like 120–130sqm (1,290–1,400 sq ft)
- Efficient, modern house
- Photovoltaic system (possibly with battery storage)
- Underfloor heating with heat pump
- Home office for me on the ground floor (makes sense since I mostly work from home)
- Bedroom upstairs, one office for her that also serves as a guest room and reserve nursery
- Large open-plan kitchen/living area
- Basement
- Cistern
- Carport for two cars and one trailer
Our first contact about building was through an ad from the local Town & Country partner. The consultant was friendly, and the show house in Geisingen looked quite nice, but somehow it all felt a bit too conservative. Built according to the Energy Saving Ordinance 2016, standard gas heating. Sure, upgrades are possible, but I’m not sure if a heat pump makes sense under that regulation anymore. The fact that the show house had cracks in the plaster here and there isn’t exactly reassuring either. But the base price is lower. Current status: two meetings, visited the show house, haven’t requested the scope of services yet.
Then we looked a bit into prefab houses. Most offer KfW55 standard, which is closer to what we want and would be a good base for going to KfW40+ since a photovoltaic system is already planned (probably just with battery preparation though). Visited the park in Villingen-Schwenningen. Had a long chat with Schwabenhaus; the consultant seemed to want to downplay costs and was very keen to sell a ground-source heat pump with boreholes. The upgrade options for the promotional houses looked likely to increase costs significantly. Visited Heldhaus, liked it quite a lot but their cost outline overshoots the budget by roughly 100,000€.
Today we had an appointment with Schwörerhaus. The floor plan of one of their promotional houses fits pretty well. Basement plus KfW40+ seems somewhat challenging in combination. Otherwise, a generally good impression; the briefly reviewed scope of services doesn’t give the impression the house would be unpleasant to live in. Let’s see what the first offer will look like. I don’t get the feeling there’s much that could go wrong there.
Next week we have an appointment with Weberhaus. We found a floor plan we really like. The price is initially the highest, but their examples include KfW40+ standard and smart home automation upfront.
Our goal is to narrow down the number of companies we continue with to a maximum of two by Christmas and then decide on a construction partner early next year. In spring, the baby will take priority, not just house planning.
I’ve already posted some thoughts about the basement and possible basement substitutes. The insulation costs for the basement seem to fully consume the additional subsidies, so the photovoltaic battery would have to be paid out of pocket again. One idea on the drive back from the appointment was whether it makes sense to build the house initially to KfW55 standard without extra insulation. The difference in heating costs is relatively small. Then install just the conduit pipes for photovoltaics with battery preparation. A few years later, add a battery once prices drop. That would also likely bring the house closer to the planned budget than going for KfW40+.
These are my thoughts so far. Have I missed anything important?
after jumping straight into the basement discussion thread, I want to use this one as an introduction and idea-sharing thread. Some things might seem a bit chaotic at first, but that will surely clear up.
We are expecting our first child in February. Since two rooms are obviously too few for the long term, we need something larger. The housing market here in Konstanz is notoriously difficult, so we didn’t spend much time searching here. Thanks to Corona home office, we focused on areas a bit further away right from the start. Initially, we looked mostly at existing properties, but due to the poor condition of what’s on offer, we unexpectedly ended up deciding to build. We were actually lucky to get a plot in a new development area around Stockach-Pfullendorf. The site started being developed this week and will probably be buildable from summer onward.
Here are some key details:
- He/I am 33, work in the software industry, based in Konstanz, from a rural area
- She is 41, a teacher in the Hegau region, from a city that basically doesn’t exist
- One child on the way, no further children planned and unlikely due to her age
- Currently living in about 65sqm (700 sq ft) with 2.5 rooms in a lovely apartment building…
- Basically, we don’t want anything too fancy—no extensive smart home automation, no luxury mansion with marble and so on. Just something solid and nice. We are not building to fulfill a lifelong dream but to avoid renovating an old house worth half a million euros. Plain wallpaper texture and laminate flooring would be fine for us if the quality is good.
- Accordingly, we don’t mind using a “standard” floor plan from a prefabricated house builder or a typical model home.
- That said, since we are building, it should be energy efficient and we don’t want to use concepts that might soon be politically outdated or unsupported.
- Do-it-yourself work only to a limited extent, as we are neither professionals nor do we have relevant contacts. Also, the new house is a bit further away, so working on it in the evening is unlikely. A weekend of painting before moving in is no problem, and after moving in, doing the carport, terrace, and garden ourselves is also fine.
- The construction partner must be reliable.
Plot and financials:
- Plot roughly 700sqm (7,535 sq ft) at 98€ per sqm → 70,000€, fairly rectangular
- 120,000€ equity (with some reserve left)
- Financing and ownership entirely in my name (unmarried and no joint assets intended)
- Planned overall budget about 500,000€
- Target monthly payment 1,500€
- Accordingly, loan to be repaid in 25 years with that rate, with some extra repayments planned mid-term aiming for about 20 years total
Budget breakdown:
- Plot 70,000€
- Ancillary plot costs 5,000€
- Other construction-related fees 60,000€
- Basement 50,000€
- Kitchen 10,000€
- Driveway, carport, terrace as DIY 15,000€
-----
210,000€
Leaves about 290,000€ in the budget for the house itself, which is probably quite tight for what we have planned. The budget still needs to be adjusted with a buffer.
So far, our wishlist looks roughly like this:
- Not excessively large, more like 120–130sqm (1,290–1,400 sq ft)
- Efficient, modern house
- Photovoltaic system (possibly with battery storage)
- Underfloor heating with heat pump
- Home office for me on the ground floor (makes sense since I mostly work from home)
- Bedroom upstairs, one office for her that also serves as a guest room and reserve nursery
- Large open-plan kitchen/living area
- Basement
- Cistern
- Carport for two cars and one trailer
Our first contact about building was through an ad from the local Town & Country partner. The consultant was friendly, and the show house in Geisingen looked quite nice, but somehow it all felt a bit too conservative. Built according to the Energy Saving Ordinance 2016, standard gas heating. Sure, upgrades are possible, but I’m not sure if a heat pump makes sense under that regulation anymore. The fact that the show house had cracks in the plaster here and there isn’t exactly reassuring either. But the base price is lower. Current status: two meetings, visited the show house, haven’t requested the scope of services yet.
Then we looked a bit into prefab houses. Most offer KfW55 standard, which is closer to what we want and would be a good base for going to KfW40+ since a photovoltaic system is already planned (probably just with battery preparation though). Visited the park in Villingen-Schwenningen. Had a long chat with Schwabenhaus; the consultant seemed to want to downplay costs and was very keen to sell a ground-source heat pump with boreholes. The upgrade options for the promotional houses looked likely to increase costs significantly. Visited Heldhaus, liked it quite a lot but their cost outline overshoots the budget by roughly 100,000€.
Today we had an appointment with Schwörerhaus. The floor plan of one of their promotional houses fits pretty well. Basement plus KfW40+ seems somewhat challenging in combination. Otherwise, a generally good impression; the briefly reviewed scope of services doesn’t give the impression the house would be unpleasant to live in. Let’s see what the first offer will look like. I don’t get the feeling there’s much that could go wrong there.
Next week we have an appointment with Weberhaus. We found a floor plan we really like. The price is initially the highest, but their examples include KfW40+ standard and smart home automation upfront.
Our goal is to narrow down the number of companies we continue with to a maximum of two by Christmas and then decide on a construction partner early next year. In spring, the baby will take priority, not just house planning.
I’ve already posted some thoughts about the basement and possible basement substitutes. The insulation costs for the basement seem to fully consume the additional subsidies, so the photovoltaic battery would have to be paid out of pocket again. One idea on the drive back from the appointment was whether it makes sense to build the house initially to KfW55 standard without extra insulation. The difference in heating costs is relatively small. Then install just the conduit pipes for photovoltaics with battery preparation. A few years later, add a battery once prices drop. That would also likely bring the house closer to the planned budget than going for KfW40+.
These are my thoughts so far. Have I missed anything important?
P
pagoni202020 Dec 2020 01:03ypg schrieb:
Your main problem is...that you are stubborn and, as a layperson, believe that architects are unnecessary and foolish, and you do things that you yourself admit are naive. You also think you are just building a simple little house that you can whip up or even draw yourself.
Well then....
If you really mean this outburst seriously, my advice is to just do exactly that: flip through a catalog and point to a house.... after all, they are all just simple houses, as you want.
I am surprised that, as a clearly inexperienced person, you are hammering in nails like that.... save that for the DIY work later, if you ever plan to do any!
With such sweeping generalizations against everyone and everything (just never against yourself), you will end up exactly where many others have ended up—somewhere you never actually wanted to be. At some point, you get fed up and just say yes. Fingers crossed.
I can only advise you to move away from these pub-style clichés; I’m truly amazed at what you spout as a layperson, even though you haven’t laid a single stone for a house yet. If you actually had some knowledge, you would speak differently and not issue mass judgments about professions or techniques just because you read or heard something somewhere. Which of your many built houses were ruined by bad architects, or where does this insight come from?
Once your house thread is posted, we will see that it won’t be a simple house without special requests—you will want to implement your own ideas as everyone does.
You come from IT, so as you say, you are not skilled in crafts, and your wife neither, so you are typical novices. If you keep going like this, that’s exactly what you will become. You distrust professionals (architects in general) but like talking to salespeople (usually not building experts)... ah, that makes sense... I’ve had two mulled wines myself. I believe architects think IT people are dumb too, because they always bend the software. Hmm... maybe they’re right?
With this attitude, you will have a tough time building; better buy something, but only a house that was demonstrably built without architects, that apparently increases quality.
Maybe you should build a house on a 3D printer—those exist already. 😀
Get off your high horse, visit local construction companies, ask questions, listen, question (especially yourself), learn, draw, calculate, and start over... and eventually you’ll find the right partner to build your house that fits your budget. Most of the time, it turns out completely different than expected—and that’s often a good thing.
I
Ideensucher20 Dec 2020 04:30WilderSueden schrieb:
Instead of thinking about where you want the stairs or where a window has to be, you just flip through the catalog and choose a floor plan. At this point, I don’t really believe that our needs are so special that a standard house model couldn’t satisfy them. Take some time to browse through the discussions about floor plans; there are many useful comments that will help you look at the floor plans from various providers with a different perspective.
If you enter a house and there is no sensible place for a coat rack and a shoe shelf in the entrance area, that can be quite frustrating.
Or the walk-in closet attached to the bedroom is listed as 10m² (108 sq ft) on paper, but it can’t be used effectively because it has two doors and a sloping roof. You spend 20,000 euros, and only a 1.5m (5 feet) wardrobe fits inside...
You want floor-to-ceiling windows in every room, but then there is no practical spot left for the nice shelving unit.
All the floor plans more or less work, but if you’re annoyed right from moving in because the shoe rack is in the way and winter coats crowd the hallway, then no one benefits. In the end, everyone ends up hanging their jackets in the home office, and suddenly it becomes uncomfortable there.
W
WilderSueden20 Dec 2020 11:35ypg schrieb:
I think your main problem is that you equate apartment building with house construction. pagoni2020 schrieb:
Which of your many built houses were ruined by your bad architects, or where does that insight come from? There are definitely issues that have little to do with apartment or house construction, but are simply just poor quality. I can understand that with large houses you have to make compromises because you only have one exterior wall, but an elevator that can only be reached by stairs... Someone had the task of creating a plan, and if not the architect, then who was it? Even if those things aren’t exactly the same, in the end it reflects on the entire profession. As an IT specialist, I can tell you how Word and Windows issues get generalized to other areas as well. I’m not saying architects are completely useless, and my opinion is slowly changing as I spend more time dealing with this.
11ant schrieb:
In a house with several dwelling units, I wouldn’t immediately call it decentralized if each unit has its own central ventilation system. I think you misunderstood me there. I wouldn’t call that decentralized either. What I meant is installing a small fan in every room with an exterior wall to save on the cost of a ventilation system per unit.
pagoni2020 schrieb:
You distrust the expert (architects in general) but you trust a salesperson (usually not construction professionals) ... alright ... I see ... and I’ve already had two mulled wines. Why would I trust the salesperson? Even though everyone has “consultant” on their business cards, they’re all salespeople—and mostly paid on commission. I think your comment does me a disservice, we’re not as naive as you think. I spent almost all of November and half of December dealing with the topic of house building. But maybe without the mulled wine, you’d see it differently.
Ideensucher schrieb:
Read through the threads where floor plans are discussed; there are many useful comments that will help you look at the plans from all providers with a different perspective. I’m already working on that. You just don’t see it because I’m holding back on commenting on other people’s floor plans. After all, I’m not an expert there either 😉
W
WilderSueden20 Dec 2020 11:55pagoni2020 schrieb:
As soon as your house thread is started, we will see that it won’t be a simple house without special requests, but that you, like everyone else, will want to implement your own individual features. Maybe a note on that point. Yes, of course, we also have “special requirements.” Essentially, the current issue arises because we wanted to skip the basement for financial reasons (waterproof concrete shell, probably arsenic in the soil → expensive excavation), but then the technical room on the ground floor competes heavily with the home office for space.
P
pagoni202020 Dec 2020 12:17WilderSueden schrieb:
There are already things that have little to do with apartment or house construction and are simply just bad.That happens everywhere... at the bakery, the dentist, the architect, and elsewhere. Therefore, you should make an effort and keep searching. There is no overall good or bad, neither in wall construction nor in heating technology. Everyone has their own feelings and preferences, which are naturally least reflected in a standard house. Still, one can choose that option, for example, if they prefer not to plan and search themselves. WilderSueden schrieb:
but an elevator only accessible by stairs... someone obviously had the task of drawing a plan, and who was that if not the architect?...see, for example, Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER)... of course, mistakes are made, but I would take a rather positive view of it. If you deliberately look for good architecture, you will find it, including from young, innovative architects and house builders. For example, I find Scandinavians often build nice houses, even though they are not the most expensive. Everyone has to find THEIR match. There are some examples in the forum, also with pictures, showing how to build nicely on a modest budget compared to others. WilderSueden schrieb:
My opinion is actually changing a bit because I am engaging with it a lot.Very good. Still, one can and should be critical, absolutely. But shutting oneself off from something from the start would be downright fatal. I’ve ended up in a completely different place than I originally wanted and thought, and I already have various house-building experiences. Planning and technology are a process. WilderSueden schrieb:
I think you misunderstood me. I wouldn’t call that decentralized either. I meant installing a small fan in every room with an exterior wall to save on the cost of a ventilation system per apartment.There is no one absolute truth here either... WilderSueden schrieb:
But maybe you think differently without the mulled wine.No, I already treat myself to two for breakfast. I’m not judging you; I only suspected some rigidity in your thinking and want to say that you should let that go—while still staying critical; but not generally dismissive, because you can learn something everywhere. House planning takes time, or you live with mediocre results. Many don’t want to take the time and want quick results. I find that unfortunate too. Planning together, brainstorming, dreaming, putting ideas aside and returning to them—these should all be part of the process. WilderSueden schrieb:
I’m not an expert either.You don’t have to be an expert—who really is? Every opinion can be important. A house should have a personal touch, and in the end, not every “expert” has to understand it. Therefore, I would encourage you to also comment on floor plans, as every perspective can help someone. WilderSueden schrieb:
We naturally also have “special requirements.”Good, so do we! WilderSueden schrieb:
The main current problem is that, for financial reasons, we wanted to skip the basement (waterproof concrete shell, probably arsenic in the soil => expensive excavation), but then the utility room on the ground floor strongly competes for space with the home office.If that’s your only problem, it should be solvable... time... searching... asking... as said, our final result differs a lot from the original idea and we are really looking forward to it now. Always begin again mentally at zero; there are many ways to Rome. Here, the mainstream is mostly discussed, often in my opinion too technically focused, but there is also a lot else that is equally valid. Everyone should find that out for themselves.
Basically, in homebuilding forums, you often encounter two main groups and a paradoxical phenomenon: many people start from their individual needs but gradually recognize similarities to tested standard models through a process of refinement. In other words, as their design becomes more practical, it also starts to resemble standard plans—at least for average users with around 1.6 to 2.4 children and household members without disabilities. Conversely, those who begin with catalog models tend, through the process of checking whether the design really fits, to move increasingly toward customized planning. For everyone, the plot of land, the building envelope, and the zoning plan—or building permit conditions—must be accommodating; otherwise, every dream will suffer significant setbacks or bruises. Also, the builders must be at least as competent as the materials they work with. The site itself communicates as strongly as the occupants do, and even gold can be used to build rubbish.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Similar topics