ᐅ Order tiles now or wait until they are needed?

Hello, homeowners struggling with inflation! 🙁

I’d like to get your opinion, as I’m not sure if I’m oversimplifying things:

- Our construction (if everything stays as planned) will start in September.
- We are working with a general contractor (GC).
- The fixtures like tiles, flooring, fittings, etc. are included with a budget of amount X, and we will choose the specific products ourselves. If we spend less, great – if we go over, we’ll have to save elsewhere (it’s a local GC, but this approach seems fine and actually preferred by me).
- The financing is already signed, and there is a “large” sum of money set aside that is effectively losing value constantly due to inflation. 🙂

My question regarding the current uncertain inflation situation is:
Would you, once the groundbreaking has happened, purchase and have the tiles, flooring, fittings, etc. delivered and paid for right away, assuming you have space somewhere like in the garage? Or would you rather delay the purchase until just before you actually need the materials, but as late as possible?

My initial thought is: Once the groundbreaking happens, I should order everything that could potentially cause variable costs and store it in the (large) garage... Am I thinking correctly, or is that too simple? 🙂

Thanks so much,
Best regards,
ruediger42

Ordered everything that is not easily available in larger quantities or especially right after the start of construction. Mainly flooring and sanitary fixtures... It was less about price increases and more about avoiding having something missing at the time it was needed... now we have everything on site (some items had lead times of 6-7 weeks, and if you have the space... why not)

ruediger42 schrieb:

My assessment would be: As soon as the groundbreaking takes place, I would order everything that could potentially cause variable costs and store it in the (large) garage... Am I thinking correctly or too simply? 🙂

Based on my experience over the past approximately 3 weeks (so quite recent), I recommend this approach.

Regarding bathroom fixtures and much more, I had been monitoring the stated delivery times and availability on the suppliers’ websites for my desired products for several months and, among other reasons, had delayed ordering. However, I did not consider that many suppliers now only list the delivery time they need to ship the goods from their own logistics center in Germany to me as the customer in Germany. (This is usually mentioned somewhere in fine print, but not clearly or understandably.) So typically just a few days delivery time. At first, that sounds really good. 🙂 But! After ordering and payment, you then find out that the goods will only arrive in 2–4 months because the time the manufacturer needs to produce the item and the time to ship it to the supplier are not included. The delivery time shown to the end customer is therefore partly meaningless since the postal and shipping times within Germany are mostly known anyway.

How far is your storage location from the construction site, and how will the materials be transported to the site?
Don’t underestimate how much material accumulates and how heavy it all is.

From my own experience, I would buy what is available. In our case, certain tiles suddenly became unavailable because they changed their product range. And it doesn’t get any cheaper. From my point of view, there is no reason not to do it this way. If the construction site and the garage are not too far apart, you can always transport everything by car once the shell is finished and the windows are installed.

Are you sure you should be ordering the materials yourself when this is actually included in the general contractor’s scope of work?
As I understand it, the general contractor or their subcontractor usually acts as the purchaser.

For example, with the tiles in our case:
- We had tiles specified in the general contractor’s work description at a certain price.
- Then we selected tiles from a building materials supplier. The supplier sent a quote to the general contractor’s tiler.
- The tiler calculated any potential additional costs and sent us a quote for these extras.
- We gave the tiler our approval, and they placed the tile order.
- The tiles were stored at the building materials supplier until they were needed.