ᐅ Purchasing a Single-Family Home Design – Should You Hire an Architect for Support?

Good evening everyone,

after quietly following and learning from various topics here for many weeks, we now have some questions regarding our own building project planned for no earlier than mid-2017.
First, a few brief details:
- Plot reserved, development plan in preparation
- Single-family house, approximately 190 sqm (2,045 sq ft) without a basement
- Very modern urban villa with a solid garage
- Total budget around 500,000€ (about 100,000€ for the plot including notary and land transfer tax)

Our wishes are certainly not standard but also not extravagant; basically, they can’t be met from catalog options as they are too individual.
Therefore, we have specifically met with developers who do custom designs and have been quite successful so far. The first offers have arrived, and a fine-tuning process is still pending.
Last week, on a business trip, I found a property that suddenly fulfilled all our wishes. I contacted the builder and had a very pleasant conversation. Due to the location being over 300 km (190 miles) away from the building site, we agreed not to build directly together. However, he offered me the chance to visit the house in person (I had seen the plans online).
My goal now is to realize our wish using these plans and a site construction manager locally.
He was open to this and said I could have:
- Structural calculations
- Plans
- Building permit application
- Final tender documents (legally reviewed)
- Exact craftsperson costs by trade from his construction

The manager of an architect’s office near the plot was open to the other side as well, though much coordination would be necessary and documents might need to be checked for liability reasons.

Now my question is: Is such an arrangement conceivable? I have become knowledgeable enough on the topic that my wife and I want to be more involved and believe that working with an architect offers more possibilities. But can such cooperation work? After all, he holds the plans for our dream home.
What should we pay attention to, and how is the best way to make the “cut” or decision?

Best regards

Is there no one who can share their opinion on this situation? That would be great.

Regardless of whether this is a good or bad idea, I can at least advise you to calculate carefully and precisely.

With a budget of 400,000 EUR including all additional building costs and a solid (double?) garage, you are left with around 320,000 to 340,000 EUR.

For that price, you won’t get 190 square meters any longer if the house is not a standard off-the-shelf design.

At least it seems to me to be a very demanding project.

For reference: 125 square meters (without basement), geothermal heat pump, photovoltaic system, precast concrete garage 8×6 meters (26×20 feet), underfloor heating, 2 bathrooms, tiles, fireplace, KfW55 standard, electric shutters, built in 2015, including additional building costs, 320,000 EUR.

Good evening,

steija1 schrieb:

- complete tender documents (legally reviewed)

"Legally reviewed?" What does that mean?

steija1 schrieb:

Now my question, is that a feasible concept?

No.

steija1 schrieb:

What should be considered and how is it best to make the "cut"?

Buy the design from him and find an architect of your choice to handle everything else.

You can’t do anything with the existing structural calculation because it is based on the soil report; your architect will prepare a suitable tender. Labor costs vary over a distance of 300 km (186 miles), so that’s no help either.

Regards, Bauexperte

Thank you for your feedback. The estimate is certainly not final and should only serve as a rough guideline for the project. However, I definitely agree with you that costs can exceed this. Even 550,000€ would not be an issue, and, for example, the earthworks are available at a very good rate from acquaintances.

The main focus here should first be on the cooperation between the two planning parties.

@Bauexperte: Thank you for your opinion.
My gut feeling is also that having too many distributed tasks tends to cause problems, as I prefer to keep interfaces with other companies manageable even in my IT projects. Otherwise, the individual interests of the parties will have an impact anyway.

What documents would be included with the planning I am about to purchase?

Structural engineering: The contractor said the same regarding the structural analysis and the existing soil report. However, he also mentioned that the structural engineering for this project would probably cost close to €10,000 (about $11,000), and with my soil report, he could do it for half that. Although this part of the conversation was more small talk, so I don’t want to put too much emphasis on that statement.