ᐅ Current waiting time for a prefabricated house

Dear Homebuilders,

We signed a contract for a prefabricated house with Fingerhaus in March 2021. We were informed that construction would not start before April 2024, which means a waiting period of at least 25 months. We reluctantly accepted this due to other advantages.

Now I have spoken with several other homebuilders, and none—absolutely none—have experienced a waiting time even close to this length. By now, I’m starting to wonder if these 25 months are completely off.

So I have some questions for the group:

- Has anyone else signed a prefabricated house contract with any company since March 2021, and if so, what was your waiting time?

- Has anyone maybe signed with FINGERHAUS since March 2021 and can share the waiting time?

- If the waiting time is indeed excessive: does anyone have ideas or arguments that could help convince them to prioritize our project?

I appreciate any tips!

Best regards,
schlimmerfingerhaus

P.S. Comments like “Serves you right if you…” or “Why choose a prefab house at all?” won’t be helpful, as the contract is already signed ;-)

Sorry, it should of course say March 2022, as that is when the contract was signed.

I have no personal experience, but for us, the waiting times for prefabricated houses were too long—if the sales representatives even mentioned any waiting times at all. A neighbor waited almost 1.5 years from the building permit (autumn 2021) with Danwood. Schwörerhaus is currently still pushing back orders by 1.5 years, even though sales have been relatively low recently. So, while two years is a long time, it’s not entirely implausible for a contract signed in spring 2021 when interest rates and construction costs were still low. However, your calculation isn’t quite right—2021 to 2024 would actually be three years, which would be somewhat excessive.

edit:
Even with March 2022, I don’t find a two-year waiting period completely implausible.

WilderSueden schrieb:

I have no personal experience, but the waiting times for prefabricated houses were too long for us. Whenever the representatives even mentioned waiting times at all. A neighbor waited nearly 1.5 years from building permit (autumn 2021) with Danwood. Schwörerhaus is still postponing orders by around 1.5 years, even though recently fewer houses have been sold. So, two years is certainly long but not entirely implausible for a contract signed in spring 2021, when interest rates and construction costs were still low. However, your calculation isn’t quite right; 2021 to 2024 would be three years, which really would be on the high side.

edit:
Even with March 2022, I find two years of waiting not completely implausible

Sorry, I meant March 2022. Thanks for your comments! By March 2022, house prices were already close to record highs. They say they can’t move us up the queue because there are few cancellations. But even if no one cancels, that still feels far too long to me. In your examples, the maximum waiting time is 1.5 years…

What does "delayed" mean? They wouldn’t make you wait without reason. When their schedules are full, that’s just how it is.
Why should you be prioritized?

I think it’s more important that this is communicated honestly right from the start.

We built with FingerHaus. The waiting time was already quite long back then, though not as long. But the sales representative’s time estimate was pretty accurate.

By the way, be prepared for a long wait if you need to make a complaint — it doesn’t get any better afterwards 😉
From what I’ve heard, this is the case with other prefab home builders as well.

Where are you currently at in the process? At least everything is nicely visible online.

schlimmerfinge schrieb:

In your examples, it's a maximum of 1.5 years anyway...

However, in the Schwörerhaus example, there has already been a year with fewer new orders, and Schwörerhaus has paid bonuses in the meantime to get rid of old contracts. In March 2022, you would certainly have faced around a 2-year waiting period.