ᐅ Experienced Home Builders Needed! Building? Renovating? Turnkey Projects?

Hello Forum!

To possibly answer my question without a post, I did some research but didn’t quite find the right information:

The core issue: My wife and I want to own a house and have two years left until the planned move-in. As a note: Our budget for EVERYTHING (house and land) is a maximum of 200,000 €. We want a property built to passive house standard, as it should still have some value in a few years and be preserved for our children. I have practical skills, as I am a heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and sanitation technician, and I am confident I can plan and install the heating (?), sanitary systems, and ventilation system.

Now there are so many options:
- Buy a developed lot and simply move in
- Buy a developed lot and renovate
- Buy land and build a turnkey house
- Buy land and get a shell construction house
- Buy land and assemble a kit house

...and these aren’t even all the options!

Now my questions:

• Could someone share their experience on how much work can be done by oneself?
• Is there actually any potential for savings?
• Just personal opinions and experiences regarding kit houses, turnkey homes, or shell construction? Or is renovating the better option?

Thanks in advance for your opinions and experience reports!

Bellyn

Hello Bellyn,

how much does your building plot cost?

Not yet decided...

Hello, 6richtige.

There is no fixed price for the plot yet, but the target is around €50,000 for 450 to 500 m² (4,843 to 5,382 sq ft).
This means the house budget is around €150,000.

Not much... 🙁

Hello Bellyn,

This looks like the following:
Land 53,000 € including additional costs
Additional costs about 25,000 €
Foundation slab with earthworks about 15,000 €
(The basement is not included with this tight budget)

200,000 € - 53,000 € - 25,000 € - 15,000 € = 107,000 € house price
A passive house with self-performed work costs about 1,600 € per m2 (17.7 sq ft) of living space, so
you can build approximately 67 m2 (720 sq ft) of living space.

For about 130 m2 (1,400 sq ft) of living space, you should have a budget of around 300,000 €, for example.

Not very encouraging...

6Richtige schrieb:

€200,000 - €53,000 - €25,000 - €15,000 = €107,000 house price
A passive house with own labor costs about €1,600 per m2 (17 sq ft) of living space, so
you can build about 67 m2 (720 sq ft) of living space.

Actually, I didn’t want to build a small shed. We will just keep looking for a plot of land and see how it works out.

However, I’m still interested in hearing about personal experiences with self-building. Just subjective comments, factual reports:
- What kind of own labor was done...
- Whether a kit house lives up to its promises...

Thanks for the feedback.

You can save money by doing some work yourself – we did a lot on our own and saved quite a bit. However, you shouldn’t overestimate yourself because usually you run out of time. For some tasks, you really need to work full-time for an extended period to make progress, and you usually don’t have unlimited vacation time.

Fortunately, we finished after 3 months – working only after regular hours can become quite a significant strain over time.

A passive house is quite a complex project and requires a certain amount of rather expensive technology.

If you want to take this on, your options are basically either a shell home / turnkey home with interior finishing or a complete self-build.