ᐅ Building with Prefabricated House Companies in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Created on: 20 Jan 2021 23:45
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Wismar1989
Hello everyone,
I (male, 31) and my husband (33) are currently looking for a home to buy. We rent in Wismar and would like to stay within the city’s catchment area (ideally in the city itself, but given the steep prices here of up to 150€/m² (14 USD/ft²), that’s hardly affordable).
We are just at the beginning of the whole process and are trying to get an overview first. We quickly agreed that we will most likely build a house, single-story, as I have knee problems and going up and down stairs regularly would be difficult for me. We want to build a bungalow of about 100m² (1,100 ft²) with four rooms. Since we neither have children nor pets – and do not plan to – we don’t need more than 600–800m² (6,460–8,610 ft²) of land.
We both work in the public sector and have about €3,800 net monthly income (€4,000 net starting in April due to step increases, plus an annual bonus). Our family will support us with equity. We expect to have around €30,000 in savings and would like to spend no more than €320,000–350,000 for the land, house, and additional costs.
We prefer prefabricated house construction, since we have no experience with building and can’t contribute physically. Now the question is – how trustworthy are companies like Town & Country (which seems to have something of a monopoly in this region), MassaHaus, Platinhaus, etc.? Online reviews are very good – almost too good – so I wanted to seek advice first before contacting any of these companies.
Thanks in advance!
I (male, 31) and my husband (33) are currently looking for a home to buy. We rent in Wismar and would like to stay within the city’s catchment area (ideally in the city itself, but given the steep prices here of up to 150€/m² (14 USD/ft²), that’s hardly affordable).
We are just at the beginning of the whole process and are trying to get an overview first. We quickly agreed that we will most likely build a house, single-story, as I have knee problems and going up and down stairs regularly would be difficult for me. We want to build a bungalow of about 100m² (1,100 ft²) with four rooms. Since we neither have children nor pets – and do not plan to – we don’t need more than 600–800m² (6,460–8,610 ft²) of land.
We both work in the public sector and have about €3,800 net monthly income (€4,000 net starting in April due to step increases, plus an annual bonus). Our family will support us with equity. We expect to have around €30,000 in savings and would like to spend no more than €320,000–350,000 for the land, house, and additional costs.
We prefer prefabricated house construction, since we have no experience with building and can’t contribute physically. Now the question is – how trustworthy are companies like Town & Country (which seems to have something of a monopoly in this region), MassaHaus, Platinhaus, etc.? Online reviews are very good – almost too good – so I wanted to seek advice first before contacting any of these companies.
Thanks in advance!
Wismar1989 schrieb:
I have to admit that I didn’t know the difference between a prefab house and a solid construction house. Oh, should I maybe avoid adding to the confusion by mentioning that there is both an overlap and, besides solid brick construction and timber frame panels, also solid wood construction (?)
Wismar1989 schrieb:
The plots we saw online are in Warin. 12-13 minutes to the A14/A20, 25 minutes to HWI, 35 minutes to Schwerin. They are supposed to cost €35 per square meter (about $4 per sq ft). So, we could get an affordable plot. The catch: Town & Country sells these, and contracts require you to build with them. Have you visited the plots in person and confirmed that the seller actually owns them? Otherwise, I recommend searching the forum for "11ant Leerverkauf," where I explained the land scam (spread across several posts). Note, some links may be broken; in that case, the thread names in the URLs must be manually changed to lowercase.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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Pinkiponk22 Jan 2021 07:46Wismar1989 schrieb:
The offer from Town & Country (the plots) is available on the local website of the franchise partner. I’m not allowed to link it, but it is there. Maybe I’m just imagining things again, ;-) but would you mind quickly double-checking on the municipality’s website or by phone to confirm whether the plots really belong to Town & Country? I mention this because it’s quite common for many home sellers to attach themselves to private or municipal land and give the impression that these are their own plots in order to sell a house.
Pinkiponk schrieb:
whether the plots really "belong" to Town & Country?... it is actually quite rare for general contractors to buy plots. Usually, they only offer them as part of the marketing for their houses.W
Wismar198923 Jan 2021 00:26Pinkiponk schrieb:
Maybe I’m seeing things again, ;-) but would you like to quickly double-check on the municipality’s website or call them just to be sure whether the plots really belong to Town & Country? I mention this because many home sellers often connect to private or municipal land and give the impression that these are their own plots to sell a house. I will definitely do that. The city itself also has additional plots independently of that. I will inquire about it early next week.
@11ant
Thanks for the tip. I will read through it.
@ypg
In principle, it would probably make more sense to save more money first, but that’s not really possible due to the current housing situation and the long commute to work. The housing market in Wismar isn’t great, which is why we ruled out moving to another apartment (even though that was our plan last summer). Changing jobs is also not an option since it took us a long time to get into the public sector after studying something completely different. In the private sector here, we would only earn about 3000 euros net together.
Since nothing is likely to change, we can hardly save more than we do now (about 1000 EUR per month, if the cars don’t need maintenance any time soon). So it’s better to move into our own home right away instead of continuing to pay rent to a landlord.
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motorradsilke23 Jan 2021 07:45Take a look at the Bungalow 100 from TuC. It would probably suit you well. You can also change all the interior walls, which doesn’t cost much (a flat fee of 750 € plus a few € if you need extra wall materials, but it’s not much). It was offered to us for just under 200,000 €, which included the foundation slab, underfloor heating, and everything we needed; only the groundwork would have incurred additional costs. Our main issue was that they have a long lead time, so we wouldn’t have been able to start building with them this year, or at best at the very end of the year.
You should just visit them and get an offer made.
Otherwise, I don’t see the additional costs as being as “dramatic” as described here. You can start with a used kitchen and used lamps, a wooden terrace can be built for a few hundred €; you can sow your own lawn, and plants for the garden are often sold cheaply through classifieds. There are even plant fairs twice a year where private sellers sell to private buyers. Driveways and garages can also be added after a few years, depending on when the money is available.
I wouldn’t give up on the dream of homeownership just because of the extra costs.
You should just visit them and get an offer made.
Otherwise, I don’t see the additional costs as being as “dramatic” as described here. You can start with a used kitchen and used lamps, a wooden terrace can be built for a few hundred €; you can sow your own lawn, and plants for the garden are often sold cheaply through classifieds. There are even plant fairs twice a year where private sellers sell to private buyers. Driveways and garages can also be added after a few years, depending on when the money is available.
I wouldn’t give up on the dream of homeownership just because of the extra costs.
motorradsilke schrieb:
It’s not as “dramatic” as described here. You can start with a used kitchen and second-hand lamps, a wooden terrace can be had for a few hundred euros, you can sow the lawn yourself, and plants for the garden are often sold cheaply in classifieds, But did you read this statement? “Everything done properly by a professional once”
Wismar1989 schrieb:
We’re really not skilled at DIY; of course, over time we would do some repairs ourselves, but right from the start we would prefer to have everything done “properly,” that is, by a professional.