ᐅ Buying a house, prefabricated home from a developer including the land

Dear community,

I would like to ask how to best approach purchasing a house from a developer (prefabricated house) together with the land. When browsing relevant real estate platforms, you can find quite a few such offers. These either state that the land is already included in the price or that it is included and sold through a cooperating real estate agent.

My question is whether such offers are generally handled through real estate agents, or if you need to contact the respective developer directly to receive early offers and avoid missing out on the last available plot.

Thank you very much for your help.

Exactly, just ask the developer directly, it doesn’t cost anything... However, in my experience, most handle the process through real estate agents because they don’t want to deal with it directly. So you can expect to pay both agent fees and property transfer tax on the total purchase price...

And as always: carefully review (or have someone review) the construction specifications and contract!

Good luck!

Mabo111 schrieb:

...
If you take a look at popular real estate websites, you will find quite a few such offers. Either with the note that the plot of land is already included in the price, or that it is included and sold through a cooperating real estate agent.
My question is whether such offers are generally handled by real estate agents or if you need to contact the respective home builders directly to receive early access to offers and avoid missing out on the last available plots.
...

If you are referring to listings directly from home providers (whether prefab or traditional construction), I would like to share my extensive experience from last year, although it may not be representative:

- The plots often don’t actually exist; it is mainly about selling a house, and the land is found together later.

- The plots often seem relatively inexpensive, but the house you are expected to build on them is overpriced.

- There are offers of land with a house where the home seller has neither access nor exclusive rights to the land. For example, our plot was already legally sold to us by notarized contract, yet it was still being offered by various home sellers without authorization and against our wishes as a land plot with house for sale.

- Some of the plots are quite undesirable; which is understandable since most home sellers have no better access to land than you do. The plots they were able to offer, at least in our case, were completely unacceptable.

I am excluding plots owned by municipalities and sold by developers here, as the process might be different with them.

I only ask for caution. You might find after your initial calls to these providers that they won’t send you detailed information or brochures but instead insist on you booking an initial consultation (a sales pitch for their house). If the land truly “belonged” to them, they could simply provide the address, since you wouldn’t be able to build on it without purchasing their house.

I repeat, maybe we just had bad luck and your experience will be completely different.

There are already other threads about this here in the forum. It usually works like this: the prefabricated house providers list a plot of land, but only reveal its location after you have signed a contract with them. In the end, the advertised plot often doesn’t even exist, and they offer you less desirable options instead.

Mabo111 schrieb:

Either with the note that the plot of land is already included in the price or that it is included and sold by a cooperating real estate agent.

I can only imagine this as a misunderstanding. If the house provider actually acts as a developer, the plot of land is indeed included in the price (which means it is a specific plot, actually owned by the developer); and as a developer, they do not need a cooperating real estate agent (since they must already meet the special commercial licensing requirements themselves). Cooperating agents in such a case are usually a sign of an attempt—regularly overturned by tax authorities—to reduce the tax burden on the land portion of the total price. Much more common is the situation where a house provider uses third-party plots—unavailable to them on a binding basis—to give potential buyers the impression that a construction contract is ready to sign, including the needed plot of land. What is included in this case is only that the presentation of the land-purchase opportunity is not separately charged. This means that the interested party should not expect any agent fees. So, if you think the offers are actually purchase proposals for plots built with specific houses and the price is understood as a package, in 99% of cases you are mistaken. The target group of this bait-and-switch are desperate land-seekers who are led to believe that their prayers have been answered and, as consolation for their previous frustration, they are now getting a plot of land—and on top of that, the house is already included. Be careful, it’s a fairy-tale bubble!

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From my own experience, I am skeptical about these package deals. The market is booming, and developers as well as prefabricated house providers have too many interested buyers without land. (Poor) sellers make many offers without solid foundations. By promising the land, providers lock in customers at an early stage. The margins and commissions are good – this is tempting. So, you need to take a closer look.