… or not?
Hello everyone,
my wife and I are looking for a stylish home that can meet our space requirements in a single full-story design. Unfortunately, it’s proving to be much more difficult than we expected.
Our needs:
In addition to the basic rooms—kitchen, living/dining, bedroom, bathroom—we would like:
2 children’s bedrooms
2 home offices
1 guest room
1 extra shower toilet for the children in the attic
1 guest toilet
1 utility room
We are fully aware that this number of rooms is quite unusual. However, we need the offices for work, and since our closest relatives live 140m (87 miles) away, a guest room is also necessary.
We currently have a plot reserved (1052m² (11,323 sq ft)). The budget is €400,000, minus the land (€40,000), leaving €350,000 for the house and garden. We would like to keep €10,000 as a reserve.
Because of the expected high space requirements, we favor a basement where supplies, storage, technical equipment, and my office can be housed. A prefabricated home company (solid construction) quoted us about €63,000 for the basement (+ €4,000 for two additional rooms in the floor plan).
We knew that basements no longer cost just €30,000, as they now have to meet KfW-55 energy efficiency standards (in our case). But that the price would be more than double, we did not expect.
Overall, we are quite shocked. We are currently waiting for the full offer, but we can already estimate that the cost probably starts with a 4, so it far exceeds our budget.
Included alongside the basement are some premium features: a walk-in shower (plus a shower screen €1,500 and the cost of waterproofing under the tiles), a sauna connection (sauna itself not included), and two additional Velux windows in the attic.
We realize now that we were probably too naive when approaching pricing, but it still can’t be true that you can’t find a suitable home for €350,000. We have already looked at around 100 floor plans, but without a basement and/or very extensive modifications, we never managed. From what we know, these get very, very expensive even with prefabricated homes.
Do you have any ideas, nice floor plans we might have overlooked, or practical suggestions? We currently have a general inquiry with a prefabricated home provider but have little hope…
Best regards,
Jake
Hello everyone,
my wife and I are looking for a stylish home that can meet our space requirements in a single full-story design. Unfortunately, it’s proving to be much more difficult than we expected.
Our needs:
In addition to the basic rooms—kitchen, living/dining, bedroom, bathroom—we would like:
2 children’s bedrooms
2 home offices
1 guest room
1 extra shower toilet for the children in the attic
1 guest toilet
1 utility room
We are fully aware that this number of rooms is quite unusual. However, we need the offices for work, and since our closest relatives live 140m (87 miles) away, a guest room is also necessary.
We currently have a plot reserved (1052m² (11,323 sq ft)). The budget is €400,000, minus the land (€40,000), leaving €350,000 for the house and garden. We would like to keep €10,000 as a reserve.
Because of the expected high space requirements, we favor a basement where supplies, storage, technical equipment, and my office can be housed. A prefabricated home company (solid construction) quoted us about €63,000 for the basement (+ €4,000 for two additional rooms in the floor plan).
We knew that basements no longer cost just €30,000, as they now have to meet KfW-55 energy efficiency standards (in our case). But that the price would be more than double, we did not expect.
Overall, we are quite shocked. We are currently waiting for the full offer, but we can already estimate that the cost probably starts with a 4, so it far exceeds our budget.
Included alongside the basement are some premium features: a walk-in shower (plus a shower screen €1,500 and the cost of waterproofing under the tiles), a sauna connection (sauna itself not included), and two additional Velux windows in the attic.
We realize now that we were probably too naive when approaching pricing, but it still can’t be true that you can’t find a suitable home for €350,000. We have already looked at around 100 floor plans, but without a basement and/or very extensive modifications, we never managed. From what we know, these get very, very expensive even with prefabricated homes.
Do you have any ideas, nice floor plans we might have overlooked, or practical suggestions? We currently have a general inquiry with a prefabricated home provider but have little hope…
Best regards,
Jake
V
ViciousJake8 May 2013 10:47Unfortunately, this is only the development contribution.
The costs for electricity, telecommunications, and water are additional (estimated at 12-15k).
Regards, Jake
The costs for electricity, telecommunications, and water are additional (estimated at 12-15k).
Regards, Jake
ViciousJake schrieb:
Currently, we have made an initial general inquiry with a prefab home supplier but have little hope left...
Best regards, JakeIn which area are you looking? For the Hamburg area and surroundings, I can share a tip with you via private message.
They really gave us excellent advice, and we were able to move quickly into our beloved home, even though it is currently quite challenging in the Hamburg region!! 🙂
Good luck moving forward!!
Hello,
350,000 should be doable. The key factor is the square footage. If each room needs 20m² (215 sq ft), it will obviously be tight. 😉
We simply designed our house ourselves because the "pre-made floor plans" didn’t satisfy all our requirements. For the planning, I used Architect 3D Ultimate. The excavators arrive next week.. 🙂
Designing houses is a lot of fun, especially when it’s your own and you’ve figured your way through the software a bit. If you want, I can help you with the program if you want to try it out. It costs around 120 euros, I believe.
Good luck! K.
350,000 should be doable. The key factor is the square footage. If each room needs 20m² (215 sq ft), it will obviously be tight. 😉
We simply designed our house ourselves because the "pre-made floor plans" didn’t satisfy all our requirements. For the planning, I used Architect 3D Ultimate. The excavators arrive next week.. 🙂
Designing houses is a lot of fun, especially when it’s your own and you’ve figured your way through the software a bit. If you want, I can help you with the program if you want to try it out. It costs around 120 euros, I believe.
Good luck! K.
Maybe we have to come to terms with it. Even though that means more costs (approximately how much?).Roughly estimated, about 10% if you let the architect handle the entire job, from planning to site supervision and so on...
But don’t worry, it probably won’t be more expensive overall... General contractors or turnkey builders also charge for planning, but that cost is usually more or less hidden within the "total price."
If you’re building in a region that is relatively "affordable," which you could guess based on the plot of land, then local craftsmen may have lower rates, and a regional architect might deliver a cheaper build than a nationwide prefabricated house provider...
And it doesn’t mean more hassle... if you let the architect manage everything, you usually only have to approve the offers once a week and decide on the finishes...
I don’t see much difference except that the architect might ask how you want certain things done, while the prefabricated builder usually just decides themselves or follows their standard package...
Of course, you don’t get a "fixed guaranteed price," but if the architect knows the local craftsmen and site conditions well and builds there frequently, they can make a pretty good estimate.
I’d rather have the architect tell me, without a guarantee, that it will be around 280,000 (units), instead of a "guaranteed fixed price" of 320,000 (units) 😉
Building into the ground is the most expensive option you can choose. That’s why I asked about the build window at the beginning.I’d like to quietly disagree there...
It really depends on the ground conditions... so definitely order a soil survey!
We were able to build our basement on a natural gravel layer and additionally excavated several hundred cubic meters of gravel to use for backfilling, which saved us a lot of costs... with a slab foundation, we would have had to buy a large amount of gravel because at that depth there was only clay soil...
With a proper window well (light well) on one side, you can create quite pleasant living spaces down there...
I would plan the home office in the basement, along with a technical room and a storage room. On the ground floor, living room/dining room/guest WC/kitchen/guest room, and on the upper floor the master bedroom plus two children’s rooms and a bathroom.
If only one full story is allowed, I think it’s not very practical to convert the attic into living space, because the house needs to be quite large to have a decent amount of usable area under the roof. In that case, it might be better to make the children’s rooms "two-level"—for example, placing the bed on a mezzanine level, which gives more space in the same footprint.
I don’t really see a big problem here for now...
B
Bauexperte6 Jul 2013 00:43Good evening,
In recent years, we have increasingly sold single-family houses built on slab foundations, and this for an obvious reason aside from the costs. Houses from earlier years had basements mainly to store homegrown produce from one’s own garden or allotment. In many cases, the basement also housed the classic workbench.
If you look at basements today, you’ll find a typical “hobby room” that is used only during the first year, until the residents realize that their own garden is a great place for gatherings, which also means less need for tidying up. In another room, you usually find the building services including the washing machine and shelves for supplies, and that’s basically it. So the basement – except for the technical/utility room – gradually turns into storage for all the things the household members can’t part with. Trust me, I know many such money pits.
However, I don’t want to hide the fact that the step from a utility cellar to a living basement – even partially – requires several more euros of effort. And if the newly created living space is not used permanently – for example, as a home office – even more hard-earned money has literally been thrown away.
For these very reasons, my advice is that a basement – more precisely, a purely utility cellar – is the most expensive way to waste money.
Best regards, Bauexperte
Shism schrieb:;)
I’d rather have the architect tell me, without any guarantees, that it will cost around 280k, instead of a "guaranteed" fixed price of 320k 😉
Shism schrieb:Not only that, but certainly also...
I’d like to quietly disagree..
It really depends a lot on the ground conditions...
Shism schrieb:That’s the point. If a basement is used solely as a utility cellar, it is the most expensive way to create floor space.
... you can also create very pleasant living spaces here...
In recent years, we have increasingly sold single-family houses built on slab foundations, and this for an obvious reason aside from the costs. Houses from earlier years had basements mainly to store homegrown produce from one’s own garden or allotment. In many cases, the basement also housed the classic workbench.
If you look at basements today, you’ll find a typical “hobby room” that is used only during the first year, until the residents realize that their own garden is a great place for gatherings, which also means less need for tidying up. In another room, you usually find the building services including the washing machine and shelves for supplies, and that’s basically it. So the basement – except for the technical/utility room – gradually turns into storage for all the things the household members can’t part with. Trust me, I know many such money pits.
However, I don’t want to hide the fact that the step from a utility cellar to a living basement – even partially – requires several more euros of effort. And if the newly created living space is not used permanently – for example, as a home office – even more hard-earned money has literally been thrown away.
For these very reasons, my advice is that a basement – more precisely, a purely utility cellar – is the most expensive way to waste money.
Best regards, Bauexperte
Hello Jake,
just google my reliable house builder. The company is an architect who provides turnkey construction... for us, the architectural services were included... okay, we chose a standard model house but changed everything inside... of course, they also do custom designs.
However, according to our contract, they later decided to charge a regional surcharge for future projects... you are 130 km (80 miles) away from them... just like us.
So far, we are satisfied with how things have been handled; there are no complaints to be found online 🙂
With lots of high-end features and extras (controlled ventilation system, underfloor heating, KfW70 standard, roller shutters, etc.), we are around 200,000 euros (about $215,000).
Of course, some issues should be clarified in advance, but you can read about that in our construction blog (linked here). You will also find the company’s name there.
I still have a good feeling about them... and asking questions doesn’t cost anything 🙂
just google my reliable house builder. The company is an architect who provides turnkey construction... for us, the architectural services were included... okay, we chose a standard model house but changed everything inside... of course, they also do custom designs.
However, according to our contract, they later decided to charge a regional surcharge for future projects... you are 130 km (80 miles) away from them... just like us.
So far, we are satisfied with how things have been handled; there are no complaints to be found online 🙂
With lots of high-end features and extras (controlled ventilation system, underfloor heating, KfW70 standard, roller shutters, etc.), we are around 200,000 euros (about $215,000).
Of course, some issues should be clarified in advance, but you can read about that in our construction blog (linked here). You will also find the company’s name there.
I still have a good feeling about them... and asking questions doesn’t cost anything 🙂
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