ᐅ Here is a floor plan for review and feedback.

Hello,

alexm86 schrieb:

Who is responsible for the design:
- Architect
What do you especially like: basically everything
Price estimate according to architect/planner: €240,000
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment: €290,000 (including additional costs and kitchen)
Preferred heating system: Gas

You’re more optimistic than I am…

If I assume €1,400.00/sqm (square meter) (about $130/sq ft) – which is quite realistic for a house of this size and specification in Northern Ireland – that already puts the total at around €261,000. Additionally, a recessed top floor is more complex to build than a classic pitched roof or even a townhouse, which likely adds roughly another €10,000. The garage will need to be built with masonry, which I would cautiously estimate around €21,000, including sectional door and side doors. The townhouse is planned to be two-thirds brick-faced, which could cost another €18,000; the garage might be clad with brick slips, possibly costing only about €4,000.

Then there are painting, flooring, some extras, outdoor landscaping, and typical ancillary construction costs… I don’t see where "marv45" would have been so far off… overall, total costs at the end of the day will more likely exceed €400,000 than be under that.

Best regards, Bauexperte

I will report back once the first quotes are available.

I understood alexm86 to mean that the 1,300 sqm refers to the pure construction costs from the contractor’s quote. That is, turnkey excluding floor coverings, painting, and so on.

If I estimate the total costs excluding the land and including self-performed work, then for our 188 sqm (2,023 sq ft) city villa, we are at 1,967 €/sqm (183 sq ft) including kitchen and furniture. Additional costs for plumbing and electrical work are already included. We also have 4 dormers, an extension, and a double garage.

Our house was already almost the best priced among 15 offers in the region. (The best offer was obviously from a company close to bankruptcy.)

The most expensive offer for the same design was 320 €/sqm (30 sq ft) higher and had poorer features.

Pricing varied a lot, and there were significant differences in the scope of work described.

We were also initially skeptical about our price and then checked with the contractor. If there are uncertainties about the price, the only solution is to gather information about the reliability of the estimate, especially if it is not a fixed-price contract.

We secured ourselves from three sides:

1. Review by an expert from the Private Homeowners’ Association
2. Consultation with a financial advisor who has financed several houses from this contractor and therefore knows what is usually involved
3. Inquiry with a customer in our building area who has just completed their construction.

As I said, from my experience, the price of 1,300 €/sqm (121 sq ft) is possible for this kind of house but not guaranteed. It can work with standard finishes and facing bricks.

marv45 schrieb:
So 1300 €/sqm (120 $/sqft) is completely unrealistic and, if anything, an absolute teaser offer—I literally had to laugh. The house shown in the plans and elevations will roughly cost 300,000 to 350,000 euros.

1300 €/sqm (120 $/sqft) is a teaser offer, that’s true, but 1400 €/sqm (129 $/sqft) already represents a decent level of quality. Of course, if you want something special included, the price will easily go higher. It also always depends on what exactly you include in the calculation. In this thread, I’ve seen three different approaches:

1. Including the land—how can you possibly compare that????????
2. Including garage and landscaping—okay, but that’s not the house itself.
3. The turnkey house including floor coverings and wall finishes (“move-in ready,” excluding kitchen and furniture).

For me, the third option is crucial, because everything else is not really comparable. Even additional costs vary, since utility connections—which are usually the largest typical extra costs (besides possibly property transfer tax, which I count as part of the land)—are very variable and don’t necessarily increase with a larger house.

If you want to build with a larger construction company (typically turnkey, whatever that means) and get a quote from them including all the major extras you want (not every single power outlet but things like underfloor heating, dormer windows, roller shutters, etc.), then you should add your land price plus 10% for additional costs and then perhaps another 40,000 euros (about 40,000 USD) for all other miscellaneous extra expenses. These 40,000 cover basically all additional costs but are quite variable depending on what you want to include.

In the end, a forum can’t really help you much because there will always be people telling you it’s not possible. You need to be proactive, get quotes, and clarify what you really want. Once you have 3-4 offers, you’ll notice the price differences are not that big. The building specifications from large companies tend to be fairly similar at first glance, which is good enough for an initial impression.

A company building 200-500 solid houses a year can’t be producing junk. It might not be “elite deluxe,” but it’s definitely not run-down or ready for demolition. At that volume, that simply wouldn’t be sustainable.

Hello, how did the story continue here? I’m curious to know!

The "story" – house construction is still ongoing, and this week the plasterer was here. We could have built for 1350€/sqm (only the house), but that would have been a very basic standard, though at least KfW 70. By now, we are at about 1650€/sqm with several extras that were not planned at the beginning. As the saying goes, "Appetite comes while eating." The house has also become a bit smaller, about 180sqm (approximately 1937 sq ft).