ᐅ HOAI or Why Architects Might Lack Interest...

What I meant was more about the overall scope.
Common practice for small single-family home builders is to create a "sketch" of 2-3 layout options during design phase 2 (since everyone uses a CAD program here, the quotation marks apply) and a statement like "costs about 400€/m³ (11.3 €/ft³), so approximately 290,000 €". In design phase 3, you then receive a more detailed plan and a more precise cost estimate.

That suits me just fine. The house we have in mind is not complicated, and we always bring the plans for it when we meet with the architect. We have selected a first floor and a ground floor from various houses offered by a prefab house provider, which fits us perfectly and only requires minor modifications.

The services included range between the most expensive and the cheapest offer so far. Both contracts cover: "New construction of a residential house with double carport."

1- Most expensive offer:
*Service phases according to HOAI
1. Basic evaluation
2. Preliminary design
3. Draft design
4. Approval planning
*Structural engineering according to §51 HOAI
*Energy consulting for KFW40(+) standard
Fixed price: approximately €17,000 gross

2- Cheapest offer:
1. Assessment of the requirements to solve the building task through planning
2. Draft design
3. Approval planning
4. Structural engineering (preparation of static calculations and thermal insulation verification)
5. Preparation of documents for the drainage application
6. Detailed design (formwork and reinforcement plans)
Fixed price: approximately €7,000 gross

Well, in the last case, it’s basically a matter of "you get what you pay for"... that’s one week of work for two people, including detailed execution planning. You can imagine what you’ll get for that and the value it represents.

I’m just thinking: If the plans meet our satisfaction in the end, the building permit/planning permission is approved, and the contractors can work with the plans, then there’s no difference, right?

I was able to visit some of the properties built by the cheaper architect, and I have one more visit planned soon. They are just “normal” houses, without any special requirements.

My point in showing the offers was basically to highlight that apparently few architects follow the HOAI fee structure in the private sector? When I see that for a single-family house the net cost can be around 30,000 (currency not specified), without the service necessarily being “better,” I also understand why. At these prices, even starting construction becomes too expensive.

Lumpi_LE schrieb:
well, in the last case it’s basically "you get what you pay for"... that’s one week of work for two people... including detailed execution planning. You can imagine what you get and what it’s worth.

Sorry, but more expensive doesn’t always mean more or better quality. What use is an expensive but careless architect? None at all. There are both bad apples and gems. Unfortunately, you never know in advance what you will get. Price should be the least of your concerns.

montessalet schrieb:
Using construction costs as a basis is unsuitable: The efforts/services of the architect should serve as the foundation.

The efforts are taken into account in the levels of difficulty: standard/basic is simple, exposed masonry is somewhat more demanding, followed by hillside locations up to pile foundations in sandy soil. Fortunately, this is all categorized into just a handful of levels, not as complex as a tax table. But case-by-case fairness was never the goal of the fee structure—after all, the idea was that you would only need an architect for the design phase, not another one for the “construction site” fee calculation.

The idea of using construction costs as the basic measure is certainly more practical than using square meters, since those would not reflect the level of finishes. It is true that buildings become more complex to plan not only because of more expensive materials—but still, the fee structure is not simply a sneaky accomplice to greed.

The reason why the fee structure (HOAI) doesn’t fit today is due to changes that were unforeseeable or not considered at the time of its “design.” It originated, on one hand, from an era when single-family houses were conceptually rather low-tech compared to today; and on the other hand, a “bracket creep” caused by boom-related overheated price increases was not anticipated.

Bau_Bambi schrieb:
The question I keep asking myself: Is this a free market or how do such fluctuations come about?

The market is as free as the participants are used to interacting with each other; the fee structure, on the other hand, is too inflexible to keep up. The result is a growing number of fee agreements that deviate from the standard and increased questioning of the fee structure’s relevance today.

The situation that emerges from this development is roughly as follows:

The client )
sees themselves (in my opinion “spoiled by price comparison websites”) as an “informed consumer.” They are engaged in the process and, as we almost daily read here on the forum, consider it normal not to come to the architect empty-handed but at least with a preliminary floor plan draft—in their view, the architect only has half the work left;

The architect )
faces this demand-side market and their fees are under pressure to justify themselves, trying to keep up in the price-spiral game;

The professional liability insurer )
views the erosion of fee levels as damaging to the “insured community,” while their risk exposure, to put it mildly, is not decreasing—consider, for example, the issue of “indemnity clauses.”

A triangle in which everyone is actually right, or at least holds a legitimate—but not necessarily compatible—point of view.

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