ᐅ Planning a Single-Family Home / Quotes

Hello,

we are currently planning a single-family house – the plot of land is already secured.

Now we would like to learn more about the process... We have sketched a preliminary plan ourselves and have a clear idea of what we want.

At the moment, we are considering having the house built by a developer. Since we want to obtain several offers, my question is how to best proceed – for example, the plan currently only exists as a hand-drawn sketch by us... The developer would need to have it created by an architect, which will likely involve costs, right? (Even if we reject the offer?)

I would appreciate any experiences or advice!

Since you already own the plot, you probably mean a general contractor. It’s best to find an independent architect who can handle all the planning up to the building permit / planning permission, including detailed construction plans, and then request bids from several general contractors using those documents.

With us, the developers also provide you with one or more floor plans free of charge. However, these are not final plans that can be submitted to the building authority, but rather plans created with a software program that largely take everything into account to allow the house to be built as planned. The documents for the building permit / planning permission are only prepared once the contract has been signed.

Thanks for the answers.

So the best approach would be to take your ideas to an architect, who will put everything on paper, and then use this to contact the construction companies?

Does the architect take care of everything, including structural engineering, or would you still need to hire a structural engineer separately? (For example, if you have one in the family ;-) )

alex87 schrieb:
Does the architect take care of everything, including the structural engineering, or do you still need to consult a structural engineer? (For example, if you have one in the family ;-) )

There are architects who handle the structural engineering, but usually they work together with a structural engineer. If you have one in the family, they can of course take on that role.

MaJu2016 schrieb:
There are also architects who handle the structural engineering themselves, but usually they work together with a structural engineer. If you have someone in the family, of course they can take care of that.

It’s the same with us. Our architect manages everything: surveyors, structural engineers, geotechnical experts, construction companies... but we always have the final say if we want to bring someone in ourselves or include certain companies in the tender process.