ᐅ Turnkey Construction or Managing Subcontractors Yourself?

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum and hope you can help me a bit.

I am 28 years old and come from Schleswig-Holstein.

I want to build a townhouse (the plot is already reserved).

Since I am quite inexperienced with this, I have a question for you:

Is it more cost-effective to have a company build the entire house, or is it cheaper if I contract all the work myself (shell construction, concrete, windows, roof, electrical, heating, etc.)?

Do you really save a lot by finding the contractors yourself, or does it not make much difference?

It would be great if you could give me some advice.

I look forward to your feedback.

Best regards,
Alex

I’m sure you can save quite a bit by contracting work individually. But that comes with a lot of extra work, a lot of stress, and if things go wrong, a lot of trouble.

You have to negotiate prices with each trade, compare offers, and know exactly what is included in each scope of work. Otherwise, you might receive quotes that sound cheap but are actually incomplete. This requires quite a bit of expertise.

It also depends on how much time you have, how long your build schedule is, and what you’re currently paying in rent... all of these are important factors. I was glad to get almost everything from a single source and was already quite frustrated by the three small trades I had to organize myself. Just one week of phone calls with about 10 tilers until I found one who had time and was willing to take on a smaller job.

The user has already explained this well.

For the same quality, turnkey houses are not more expensive than those built through individual contracts.

Comparing the two is (unfortunately) very difficult for someone without construction experience.

With general contractor / construction management / turnkey contracts, the scope of work is defined and coordinated. In this case, the coordination of trades is managed (more).

Regarding warranties, you have only one point of contact.

With individual contracts, each item can be compared separately. The prerequisite for this is knowing the desired standard.

Right, I would always choose a turnkey construction again. When we built the extension for the conservatory back then, I already had enough to manage, and if the architect hadn’t handled the overall planning, the contractors would have probably made several mistakes. For example, we suddenly had a roughly 15x15 cm (6x6 inch) wooden beam in front of the living room opening. That would have caused a lot of hassle because when I complained, the contractors told me, "That's how it’s shown in the plan." One call to the architect/general planner fixed the issue.

From my experience, construction projects with separate trade contracts are more cost-effective but involve significantly more work. The general contractor's profit has to come from somewhere. We will start building in about 6 weeks and have a competent site manager for the construction phase, who will also work with us on the tendering and awarding of trades. During the construction phase, an average of one site visit per day is contractually agreed upon.

A construction project is also feasible without professional supervision, but I would not want to have the mistakes made during construction in my house.

Hello,

we decided to contract individual trades ourselves, even though almost everyone advised against it since we had no experience with construction.

First of all – we would do it the same way again and are glad we didn’t hire a general contractor.

Our conclusion:

It wasn’t cheaper in terms of total cost, but the quality was significantly (!!!!) higher.

It’s not true that it was as stressful as most people say.

We didn’t have any of that hassle with detailed scopes of work (there weren’t any in the classic sense).

We knew exactly what we were getting for our money.

There were no disputes or back-and-forth when we wanted changes during the construction phase (such as electrical outlets, switches, additional walls, etc.).

No financial risk, since we paid the tradespeople after the work was completed and didn’t pay upfront according to complicated payment schedules.

It’s a huge advantage to personally know the tradespeople.

You don’t have to stress at the beginning with selections where you have to decide everything within two days; instead, you make those decisions yourself while construction is already in progress.

The commission that sellers/general contractors usually take is invested directly into our house, not into their pockets.

The tradespeople are much more motivated because they are not underpriced by the general contractor (according to statements from most of the tradespeople).

You have complete transparency and decide for yourself what you want.