ᐅ Catalog home or custom design with an architect

roteweste_2 schrieb:

We are planning a fairly standard, subsidized single-family house.

What you want is a larger house than average. Larger office on the ground floor, and three equal-sized children’s rooms upstairs.

roteweste_2 schrieb:

So far, none of the catalogue houses have suited us, because they almost never have three children’s rooms on the upper floor.

Well!
Catalogue floor plans can usually be adjusted at little or no extra cost.
This forum is full of floor plan discussions where the original poster wants to modify a standard model.

It should not be a problem to engage with the general contractors (GCs) in your region or those building nearby, and to look at their offers.
Because their proposals are for houses that can be afforded and built by most people. You want something more, which is often more challenging.
Personally, when you have a high number of rooms, I always recommend including the attic space, either as a reserve or already as part of the plan.

You can visit show homes or construction sites online or on weekends.
If someone seems like a good fit, you should talk to them and ask for a house design that can be modified accordingly. That way, you already have an option in mind.
Of course, you don’t have to sign anything there.

Your wish implies about 20m² (215 sq ft) more than an average small house and will correspondingly cost more.
Interestingly, recently there have actually been many floor plan discussions here about houses with three children’s rooms – none of them architect-designed houses.

However, this forum has different opinions: some members are here to make catalogue floor plans or builder designs more functional and personal, while others always recommend hiring an architect for every house.

So you should take some time to browse this forum and look for floor plan discussions about such houses. You might find out who the GC is.

I would also suggest speeding up this process, because you first need to find the right direction before moving forward.
For example, we built with a GC run by two architects. But even they employ architects or architectural offices with several architects who are not necessarily independent themselves.

KarstenausNRW schrieb:

Oops. What about the higher costs that arise with catalog home providers? Don’t those put you off?
- Marketing
- Sales staff
- Administrative overhead
- Vehicle fleet
- Catalog production
- Show home village
- Office rental costs, etc.
- Sampling efforts
- Architects/structural engineers due to redesign requests
and so on.
Who do you think has to pay for all that?
(...)

That’s actually quite nonsense. Show homes usually double as the office space, and architects have office costs as well. For marketing reasons alone, they’re not sitting in a shipping container in a supermarket parking lot.
All the costs you listed are more or less the same for architects. What the architect *doesn’t* have:

They don’t order 2,000 heat pumps per year from Vaillant, but rather only about 20. That means they get completely different prices than the large catalog home providers, and this applies across all trades.
If you go to the hardware store and buy a wheel bolt, it costs around 2.50 euros (about $2.50). When VW buys those bolts in bulk, the price might drop to around 10 cents each.

xMisterDx schrieb:


All the costs you listed are more or less also incurred by the architect. What the architect does not have:

They don’t order 2,000 heat pumps per year from Vaillant, just about 20. This means they get completely different prices than large volume home builders, and this applies across all trades.
If you go to the hardware store and buy a wheel bolt, it costs around 2.50 EUR. When VW buys these parts, we might be talking about 10 cents per bolt.

To connect back to the main point: we definitely want to build with a general contractor. The question is whether we should outsource the planning phase to an architect.

Otherwise, we would be very interested in practical experience regarding additional costs. For a masonry house, there is no real prefabrication involved, so external planning should actually fall within the same cost range. Any price advantage should primarily come from the general contractor having a certain level of prefabrication, meaning a prefab or modular house. Does anyone have reliable figures on this?

xMisterDx schrieb:

The architect has more or less the same costs you mentioned.

With a strong emphasis on “less.” I don’t know which architects carry around large staffs, maintain show homes, operate a fleet of salespeople, distribute glossy brochures, and run professional websites, etc.

xMisterDx schrieb:

They don’t order 2,000 heat pumps per year from Vaillant,

No. But neither does any off-the-shelf home builder.

xMisterDx schrieb:

If you go to the hardware store and buy a wheel bolt, it costs about 2.50 EUR. If VW buys them, we're maybe talking about 10 cents per bolt.

Good thing you don’t go to the hardware store yourself when building a custom home, but rather work with tradespeople who buy from wholesalers and enjoy those cost advantages. They can then, if needed, install the cheaper heat pump from Viessmann instead of one of the 2,000 expensive Vaillant units just sitting in stock.

By the way, a very important cost factor with the really large national general contractors is the legal department. They have a substantial budget to contest your claims.

roteweste_2 schrieb:

To bring the discussion full circle: We definitely want to build with a general contractor. The question is whether we should outsource the planning phase to an architect.

Otherwise, we would be very interested in real experience regarding the additional costs. With a masonry house, there is no real prefabrication, so external planning should actually fall within the same cost range. The price advantage should only really come into play if the general contractor offers a corresponding level of prefabrication—that is, a prefabricated house. Does anyone have reliable figures on this?

That’s the wrong question. Building a house is as individual as anything else. Even an identical house will be priced differently in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania compared to Bavaria or Berlin. Additional costs may occur, or it may become cheaper. Location, the economic situation of the region, wage levels, and even the availability of materials all vary everywhere. The price advantage you think exists simply does not. Not even between a general contractor/architect plus individual trades and a prefabricated house supplier.

Above all, you cannot really compare. This only works if you work with an architect through phase 6. Then you have a complete tender of all trades and receive comparable bids from all providers (or craftsmen) for identical houses. And even then, providers will offer you different options, for example, using different materials.

By the way, a prefabricated house can also be made of masonry and prefabricated in a factory. For example, in mass production by companies like Deutsche Reihenhaus. They build 50-100 houses at once in concrete factories and store them on site (including windows and pre-installed electrical and plumbing systems).