ᐅ Tips for Home Construction Companies in Southern Baden-Württemberg

11ant schrieb:

!!! Instruction leaflet – user guide for non-experts: please read the following text very carefully, as if you were chewing it thoroughly before swallowing. That means, after every sentence, imagine a line break and an empty line. I wrote continuous text here only because otherwise it would have become a page as tall as a man. !!!


I am starting to realize that you probably understand even less than you think you do. So, let’s begin right at the beginning:
Under the term "prefabricated house," you seem to group all providers offering a "finished house" in the sense of a "turnkey construction," and you basically see two options: this one and, in contrast or as an alternative, the assembly of individual trades.
The term "prefabricated house" is also commonly used to describe a house that is pre-built. That means the house is not constructed entirely on site, but in two phases: the shell is built wall panel by wall panel in a production facility and then transported by low-loader truck to the building site, where it is assembled and the interior finishing is done. Most manufacturers using this method build with wood frame panels (incorrectly but commonly called “timber studs”). Due to weight, it is more difficult to transport, and therefore fewer manufacturers build with materials like porous bricks, expanded clay, or other "masonry materials." Medium-weight and most recent on the market are also "solid wood" wall panels of various construction types.
All "prefabricated house" manufacturers act as general contractors (GCs), or if they offer shell construction only, as shell GCs, although they usually do not call themselves that. The term GC is often only applied to those who build traditionally site-built houses ("brick by brick"). A general contractor means, from a commercial perspective, being the only contractual counterpart to the client, thus offering all trades of house construction—or at least the shell—and employing or subcontracting the craftsmen of the interior finishing trades. For the client, this means one signature and one fixed price. General contractors offer their services both for architects’ tenders and directly to clients. Many clients naively think of architects as just draft makers, consider their fees unnecessarily high, and would like to get their services cheaper “under the table.” Many GCs have noticed this, hired architects themselves, and now offer house construction including planning services.
Especially overly clever clients want to save even more and believe the smartest way is to subcontract the trades individually, dreaming of summing up the cheapest individual contracts. Here, stinginess would backfire, since then they would lose the “free extra” architect the GC provides. So some GCs offer shell construction including permit planning and let the clients continue dreaming their smart dreams. There are different perspectives here. In my opinion, the smartest approach is to plan the house together with an architect—not only up to the building permit but truly turnkey. That means the architect doesn’t just “draw” the house but also issues tenders for contracts (I also consider it wise to let the architect participate as a GC in bidding) and manages construction. To pile on the terms, there are also property developers. These are GCs who buy land and resell it with houses built on it as a package. For liquidity reasons, they increasingly do not sell fully built houses as was more common before but enter into contracts to start building only after signing. The buyer can still influence the planning significantly, feels like the client (which legally they are not), and thus loses track of the difference between GC and property developer (PD). As a result, house buyers talking to PDs often generically use “developer” even when they mean GC.

Check the forum section "Experiences with house builders" combined with the names of the nearest regional administrative centers around your building site (and/or with names of regional builders you already know)—there you will find reviews of these companies and their competitors. If all else fails ;-) feel free to add gmx (de) after my username as long as you are not yet part of the forum’s private message circle. But first, sit down comfortably, take a deep breath, as I said chew well before swallowing, and if needed, order a Doornkaat from Günni—you know what I mean, cheers 🙂

Very helpful information; thank you! Absolutely correct— as non-experts, we would never think of subcontracting trades individually. Instead, our plan is to engage a civil engineer or architect for full support and supervision throughout the project! As soon as we have more concrete information, we will be happy to share our first drafts here.

Construbo schrieb:

Very helpful information; thank you for that!

Would you like to share which parts you learned the most from?

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Hello everyone,

thanks for the tips so far. We don’t have a plot of land yet and will ideally start with that.

We envision a multi-generational house with a finished basement, so that we can basically rent out two separate apartments. Did I understand correctly that using a plot-finding service is generally not recommended here?

The basis for the offers were just project homes, which we theoretically planned without a plot. For example, with Allkauf Haus we have an offer for exactly such a multi-generational house including a finished basement, with everything included except the plot. I’m just wondering if everything is really included or if we would end up frustrated during the construction process because additional costs or work appear that were not obvious at first.

Since the plot and the built house are quite closely dependent on each other, is it really sensible to look for plots first only?

Best regards

WilderSueden schrieb:

General contractors (including prefab home providers and property developers) usually add a flat markup (and often quite a significant one), but generally offer a fixed price.

This markup is a myth and economically nonsense. The general contractor typically prices in—often without any real understanding of insurance mathematics—their experience of an effect that the client would also experience when contracting individually: sometimes you can’t hire the cheapest bidder simply because they are not available at the right time. So the assumption “we just combine all the cheapest offers for the lowest total price” doesn’t work out. The real “markup” is actually a premium for the risk of price increases in materials and services during the validity of their price guarantee. And yes, of course—see below regarding hourly rates—if, for the aforementioned scheduling reasons, the general contractor needs to bring a new team member on board, their coordination risk increases. But these are all risks the client would also bear when managing contracts themselves—the main difference is that with the contractor, these risks are already factored into the offer, rather than the client being caught off guard by unexpected costs later on.

WilderSueden schrieb:

When contracting individually, the architect charges for the tendering and coordination services but usually does not take on the cost risk.

I can assure you that the architect’s fees for managing the tendering process are often significantly exceeded due to rookie mistakes. Those who most confidently underestimate these costs are often self-builders with some business administration background—especially Excel enthusiasts whose favorite extra courses are negotiation training. Experienced contractors spot the gaps in the calculation first. Architects do not take on cost risk—besides their professional liability insurance, which covers careful work during cost estimation—they do not assume the cost risk at all.

WilderSueden schrieb:

Therefore, it is important to work with an architect who provides reliable estimates from the start. There are plenty of stories here in the forum about architects whose cost overruns of 20% are considered normal.

This phenomenon mainly affects clients who, during the architect shortage caused by the building boom, either reactivate retired architects ala “retired police officers” (who leave purchasing to their spouses and haven’t updated their knowledge on market prices since the euro was introduced) or invite a professor who has spent years teaching in an academic “ivory tower” back into practice. For architects returning to work after a decade-long maternity break, this happens less often because they typically focus on design first and delegate the execution phase to a site manager. With professors, a student assistant often gets involved at this stage, relying on outdated tables from textbooks, which leads to “correct” calculations based on incorrect foundations.

WilderSueden schrieb:

Individual contracting can certainly save a few dollars, but you bear the cost risk yourself.

Individual contracting is definitely a kind of Russian roulette, where beginners almost always manage to pick a bad contractor. It becomes a cacophony if you do it without an “architect conductor.” The biggest wrench is detailed planning—without it, you're guaranteed to run aground on a reef called change orders (hourly rates)—plus you might as well put out an extra pallet of expanding foam for everyone to help themselves to. Individual contracting can work—but doing it yourself without detailed planning and relevant experience is a textbook example of a disaster.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

Jokeep1337 schrieb:

We don’t have a plot of land yet and [...] are imagining a multi-generation house with a finished basement, so that we can essentially rent out two separate units.

This is an unfortunate combination, because that would result in three separate units, and many building zones limit the number of units to two, which would exclude quite a few available development areas given the already limited selection.

Jokeep1337 schrieb:

So, did I understand correctly that the plot search service is generally not recommended here?

You can actually remove the word “generally.”

Jokeep1337 schrieb:

The basis for the offers was simply model homes that we then theoretically configured without an actual plot.

Where did those “model homes” come from?

Jokeep1337 schrieb:

Since the plot and the house to be built on it are quite closely linked, does it really make sense to look for plots first?

Apart from the prairie areas near Poland (MV/BB) or, to some extent, the former border zones in Hessian Siberia, nowadays you mostly only find plots for sale where the house has to fit relatively exactly within the building envelope with little room for adjustment. The question of whether a basement is possible often isn’t even in your hands then. Planning without having a plot is, in concrete terms, like trying to do the math without the key conditions being set. On an abstract level — how much space is needed and how the floors should be connected — it makes sense to clarify this earlier. In other words, make your wish list now and only finalize floor plans after finding the plot, unless you’re locally flexible enough to reverse the priority and look for a plot that accommodates your preferred house dimensions. However, that’s more difficult in the current market.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

Jokeep1337 schrieb:

Since the plot of land and the house built on it are closely related, is it really sensible to start by only looking for land?

Without land, there is no zoning plan, and without a zoning plan, you can design everything you want only to end up discarding it later. Especially since three-family houses (which is what you’re talking about, not a granny flat) are often difficult to implement within many zoning plans. In our area, it might be possible (no plot ratio specified), but would it look good? Ideal conditions for something like this would probably be a moderate slope (to allow daylight in the basement apartment), a zoning plan permitting two full floors, a generous floor area ratio, and no plot coverage limit. It would also be best if there were no parking space requirements, since with the usual two spaces per dwelling unit, you would need to provide six parking spaces.

Regarding providers... every provider has their own niche and reputation. Some mainly offer shell-and-core houses, some work in the lower price segment, others in the higher-end market. In Villingen-Schwenningen, you’ll find all kinds of providers, but they are comparable only in that they build prefabricated houses.
Since your project falls outside the usual scope for construction companies (single-family house or semi-detached house), I would also consider hiring an architect once you have secured a plot of land.

@11ant I never suggested directly hiring individual contractors yourself. I would strongly advise against that unless you happen to be a full-time construction manager or similar and plan to work part-time at your company during the construction period. The discussion was more about the options of a general contractor or hiring through a professional. Of course, a general contractor charges for taking on the price risk. And why an architect might miscalculate is often hard for a non-expert to understand—you usually don’t even know if the architect has made a miscalculation.