ᐅ Preliminary design through the architect, followed by tendering?
Created on: 4 Aug 2023 10:34
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Bauen1899
Hello everyone,
We have a plot of land in Paderborn and would like to build a single-family house of about 150m2 (1,615 sq ft) on it.
Since we have two children, are quite busy with work, and are not very skilled with DIY, we would prefer to have most of the work done by professionals.
Right now, we are unsure about the best approach, and from our online research, opinions seem to vary widely.
We have decided that we want to build a timber house. We have already consulted several architects who naturally all recommended handling everything directly through them. However, we feel that this might be too time-consuming since we already have difficulty finding times when all of us can meet.
On the other hand, I don’t want to go directly to a construction company, since I don’t have any personal recommendations, and I imagine that if I put the project out to tender openly, the bids might be somewhat lower than if I commit straight away to one company.
My idea was to have an architect carry out service phases 1-3 (up to preliminary design) and then put these plans out for tender to construction companies.
However, I have also read that the detailed design should definitely be done by the architect, because otherwise, there is no real basis for comparison. Also, the planner responsible for the preliminary design should naturally handle the detailed design as well. On the other hand, I have heard there is a risk that each company might build somewhat differently, and if the building permit/planning permission is already granted based on the detailed design, which is then fixed, this could lead to major problems. Therefore, it might be better if the construction company prepares the detailed design.
Additionally, the detailed design costs a lot more money and only makes sense if the construction company takes it over exactly as planned and doesn’t need to redo the planning themselves, which would again cause extra costs.
The offer for the 150m2 (1,615 sq ft) single-family house (first rough cost estimate from the architect = €350,000, which seems a bit low to me) for service phases 1-3 is €11,000. Is that reasonable?
Or is this all nonsense, and in the end, I will pay the €11,000 to the architect and still have to cover architect fees again for the construction company?
Could you please help me? Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone in my personal network who can really assist me.
We have a plot of land in Paderborn and would like to build a single-family house of about 150m2 (1,615 sq ft) on it.
Since we have two children, are quite busy with work, and are not very skilled with DIY, we would prefer to have most of the work done by professionals.
Right now, we are unsure about the best approach, and from our online research, opinions seem to vary widely.
We have decided that we want to build a timber house. We have already consulted several architects who naturally all recommended handling everything directly through them. However, we feel that this might be too time-consuming since we already have difficulty finding times when all of us can meet.
On the other hand, I don’t want to go directly to a construction company, since I don’t have any personal recommendations, and I imagine that if I put the project out to tender openly, the bids might be somewhat lower than if I commit straight away to one company.
My idea was to have an architect carry out service phases 1-3 (up to preliminary design) and then put these plans out for tender to construction companies.
However, I have also read that the detailed design should definitely be done by the architect, because otherwise, there is no real basis for comparison. Also, the planner responsible for the preliminary design should naturally handle the detailed design as well. On the other hand, I have heard there is a risk that each company might build somewhat differently, and if the building permit/planning permission is already granted based on the detailed design, which is then fixed, this could lead to major problems. Therefore, it might be better if the construction company prepares the detailed design.
Additionally, the detailed design costs a lot more money and only makes sense if the construction company takes it over exactly as planned and doesn’t need to redo the planning themselves, which would again cause extra costs.
The offer for the 150m2 (1,615 sq ft) single-family house (first rough cost estimate from the architect = €350,000, which seems a bit low to me) for service phases 1-3 is €11,000. Is that reasonable?
Or is this all nonsense, and in the end, I will pay the €11,000 to the architect and still have to cover architect fees again for the construction company?
Could you please help me? Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone in my personal network who can really assist me.
F
Fabian300011 Feb 2024 21:56Okay, I understand. So far, we haven’t decided anything yet. We are currently choosing between selecting a construction company without any comparisons and going through an architect with a comparison of offers. If we choose the architect route, we would commission them up to design phase 4, or at least up to design phase 7 if that makes more sense. However, that already costs around 20-25 thousand euros. I completely understand that it is obviously best to commission up to design phase 8, but you also have to keep an eye on the costs, and I think that route would probably cost around 40 thousand euros. So either you skip comparing offers to save costs, or you spend 40 thousand euros. In my opinion, it’s questionable whether you would still be cheaper overall even after comparing offers. Or is there another option that I might be missing?
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os24laenger11 Feb 2024 22:37Hello Fabian,
We faced a similar decision. Back then, we only had the design and planning approval prepared by our architect. We then consulted several companies within the provider’s system to get quotes based on our design. We didn’t just compare prices; we also considered whether the company was a good fit for us (how long they’ve been in business, where their craftsmen come from, sustainability, etc.). For the few companies that remained, we asked them to refine their offers and reviewed them together with our architect. In the end, we chose the provider that had the most positive attributes and also fit our budget. We had to make some compromises, but at least we stayed within a system that our home builder was experienced with. With service phases 1 to 8 and tendering, you should ideally get exactly what you want, but you need to be very clear about your requirements. Plus, you have to hope you find a company willing and able to execute the project—and at a price you can accept.
That all felt too uncertain to us, so we thought going with a fixed-price contract through a general contractor was safer. Our architect is still involved as a construction supervisor.
I compare it to buying a car. Either you have a vehicle custom-built to your exact specifications, or you look at several manufacturers, configure a car, and pick the one you like best and can afford.
We faced a similar decision. Back then, we only had the design and planning approval prepared by our architect. We then consulted several companies within the provider’s system to get quotes based on our design. We didn’t just compare prices; we also considered whether the company was a good fit for us (how long they’ve been in business, where their craftsmen come from, sustainability, etc.). For the few companies that remained, we asked them to refine their offers and reviewed them together with our architect. In the end, we chose the provider that had the most positive attributes and also fit our budget. We had to make some compromises, but at least we stayed within a system that our home builder was experienced with. With service phases 1 to 8 and tendering, you should ideally get exactly what you want, but you need to be very clear about your requirements. Plus, you have to hope you find a company willing and able to execute the project—and at a price you can accept.
That all felt too uncertain to us, so we thought going with a fixed-price contract through a general contractor was safer. Our architect is still involved as a construction supervisor.
I compare it to buying a car. Either you have a vehicle custom-built to your exact specifications, or you look at several manufacturers, configure a car, and pick the one you like best and can afford.
Fabian3000 schrieb:
I completely understand that it's obviously most sensible to commission the architect up to design phase 8, but you also have to keep costs in mind, and this approach would probably cost around 40,000 euros (about 40,000 USD), I think. You share this misconception with thousands of other home builders every year. It’s so widespread because it sounds logical at first glance. And it remains popular (though unfortunately not logical) because, first, hardly anyone builds two houses to compare and keep the cheaper option, and second, because people who have taken the less wise approach know others who did the same and are satisfied with the result. Nevertheless, I and many other independent building consultants are happy to help those home builders whom we can show the smarter path in time.
If you read my house-building roadmap including the new “chapters,” you will soon realize that this path can not only be followed “this way and no other,” but can also be adapted or followed partially. The “default version” of my roadmap is aimed at those who were going to book design phases 1 to 8 with an architect anyway. These readers learn from my concept, first, 1. how to split the architect’s contract into three installments, and 2. the trick with the “resting dough” and the right strategic positioning. Those who would have hired an architect only up to the building permit stage (design phases 1 to 4) will further discover 3. the magic of the cost-control tool provided by design phase 5 and 4. (even if they want to continue skipping module C and only reconsider upgrading the architect’s scope from design phases 1–4 to 1–5). With this move alone, they can eliminate from their candidate list those architects warned about by @Gerddieter. A not absolute but still quite reliable sign of architects who are poor at cost adherence is their limitation to design phases 1 to 4 only.
Fabian3000 schrieb:
So either you give up getting multiple bids to save costs, or spend 40,000 euros (about 40,000 USD). In my opinion, it’s questionable whether you end up cheaper overall after a bid comparison. Or is there another possibility I might not see? If I interpret this part of your misconception correctly, you fear that the path to more accurate cost comparisons inevitably causes additional, “safe” fee expenses which eat up any possible savings from comparing bids. But first, as much as I would have to agree that this sounds initially plausible, the reality is “quite the opposite.” Second, there is an additional mistake within this thinking, which I will address first: you can also book these consulting services from other independent, home-builder-friendly advisors besides the architect, and of course under different conditions than the classical fees according to the German HOAI fee schedule.
However, even according to that fee schedule, I can assure you that the architect is worth it in the “larger” scope. This is because the architect proves their value in the “second half” (design phases 5 to 8). While the “first half” up to the building permit accounts for 27 percentage points of the fee (“according to the table”), the second half accounts for 71 percentage points—and out of this, phase 5 alone accounts for 25 points, which is almost as much as the entire first half combined. Anyone who stops reading at this point may be alarmed and convinced, as the saying goes, that this is “wicked expensive.”
However, at this point you need to change perspective: where the 27 percentage points for phases 1 to 4 were unavoidable expenses, the 46 points for phases 6 to 8 are an investment, and the 25 points for phase 5 in between are even self-financing.
This means for you, if you don’t consider yourself just a “good enough” earner, that you can pursue the best path in a variation: specifically, hire the architect for phases 1 to 3 (in two contract installments!), arrange phase 4 in a way you need to discuss individually with an independent advisor, hire a tendering specialist for phases 5 to 7, and engage a site-monitoring expert for phase 8 for example. But letting a general contractor (GC) walk all over you just because you’re afraid of the costs of comparing bids would definitely be a mistake. One thing is certain: by doing that, the GC turns everything you sign off on into a blank check. They’re even better at this than at stacking bricks. Even “Pronto Salvatore” could learn a thing or two here.
os24laenger schrieb:
I compare it to buying a car. Either I have a vehicle custom-built exactly to my wishes, or I look at a few manufacturers, configure a car there, and choose the one I like best and can afford. Choosing a “catalog house” is often a good alternative, especially for “normal” families with two adults and two children and a plot where, according to the 11ant cellar rule, no basement is required. And you can also seek advice for this option, including from an architect — who is certainly not only useful for custom designs.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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Fabian300012 Feb 2024 17:24So, if I don’t want to go through the entire process with an architect and divide it among four different contacts, then the approach by os24länger would be the best. You just need to find an architect who compares offers from different construction companies, even if they are not always directly comparable due to different specifications, and who also supervises the construction, even though they did not design the execution. Is that correct?
Fabian3000 schrieb:
You just need to find an architect who compares offers from different construction companies, even if they are partly not comparable due to different specifications, and who also supervises the construction process, even though they didn’t design it. Is that correct? An impartial and knowledgeable advisor can indeed be an architect, but it is not mandatory. And an architect’s competence is definitely not limited to being the original designer of the house, that is correct. What matters, as you rightly pointed out, is the active comparison, meaning that a professional working in your interest defines the benchmark for comparison. Creating such a personalized benchmark requires significantly less time with the same expertise level from the assessor or assistant. The same expertise equals the same hourly rate, but with considerably less time needed, resulting in effectively lower costs for conducting the comparison. Only crazy people or those wanting to become crazy quickly perform a passive comparison (a time-consuming and imperfect apples-to-oranges comparison that bears the same name).
Fabian3000 schrieb:
So if I don’t want to go the full way through the architect and don’t want to split the process between 4 points of contact, then the approach of os24länger would be the best option. That is quite close to the approach I recommend and practice. It’s not necessarily true that you would have to split your contact person into four: removing the two major service phases 5 and 8 and/or phases 6 and 7 from the part of the architect’s services remunerated according to the HOAI table doesn’t automatically mean you have to hire a different architect as a contractor for those phases.
In my case (independent advisor, not an architect) and in the case of many colleagues, phases 6 and 7 can be provided, but not phase 8 (for which I personally prefer the original designer and detail planner as the “gold standard,” although I also consider construction supervision experts a good choice). Several colleagues also offer phase 8, but instead of phases 6 and 7, they only do the less effective passive comparison of construction service descriptions, in my opinion.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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