Defensible numbers, before capital moves.
Investment decisions need neutral, defensible technical findings, and discretion. We provide both: from technical due diligence through feasibility and buildable volume to the management of whole sites. At a fixed fee, under the professional responsibility of our architect, a member of the Architektenkammer Nordrhein-Westfalen.
German speakers: the corresponding German page is more detailed, Für Investoren & Projektentwickler.
Neutral findings, from the first inspection to handover.
Technical due diligence
Systematic assessment of structure, building services, deferred maintenance and risk, with a defensible cost forecast, for acquisition, portfolio review and long-term holding.
Feasibility and buildable volume
What does the site or the existing building actually allow? Massing, permitted density (GRZ and GFZ, the German site coverage and floor area ratios), constraints and an indicative cost range.
Neutral basis for negotiation
Independent technical findings for negotiations between owner, operator and lender. Discreet, and written so that both sides can work from the same document.
Project and large-project management
From foundations to site logistics: one contact controls the interfaces, the programme and the trades, including special-use buildings and whole quarters.
Refurbishment and CapEx roadmap
A prioritised measures and investment roadmap across single assets or a whole portfolio, the decision basis for the coming years, not a wish list.
Monitoring and site supervision
Supervision of execution, acceptance inspections and defect management, so that the yield survives contact with the building site.
Six things a German building will not tell you voluntarily.
A German vendor's data room is usually complete in the commercial sense and thin in the technical one. The findings that move a price sit in the building itself and in the Bauakte, the permit file held by the building control authority, which a purchaser can usually have inspected with the owner's consent. We read both.
Structure and substance
Crack patterns, deflection, visible fatigue in load-bearing elements. Decides whether an additional storey or a changed load path is an option at all.
Building services and distribution
Age and condition of heating, electrical and sanitary installations. Shows whether selective modernisation is enough or the asset is heading for a full strip-out.
Contaminants and ground
Asbestos, PAH, ground contamination. Proving or excluding them is a precondition for any demolition, conversion or extension design, not a formality afterwards.
Fire safety and escape routes
Whether the existing fire safety concept still carries the intended use. A change of use frequently fails here rather than on the architecture.
Energy performance and the regulatory path
Condition of the envelope and the plant, measured against the German Gebäudeenergiegesetz and, for portfolios, against a decarbonisation pathway. What is compliant today can be stranded within a holding period.
Permit history in the building file
What was actually approved, and whether what stands there matches it. Divergences between the permit and the building are common and are the buyer's problem after completion.
The report is written to be read by a lender's credit committee: findings separated from assessment, a CapEx plan with a stated level of accuracy, and risk positions shown rather than absorbed. The technical due diligence is a fixed fee of 4,900 € bis 7,900 € (plus German VAT): the lower figure applies up to six residential units, the upper up to twelve. Larger and commercial properties are quoted individually against the brief. A CRREM-based assessment of your stock against the requirements of the EPBD 2024/1275 is a separate item at from 490 € per building (plus German VAT). We confirm the figure and the date for your specific asset before you commit.
Every German project carries the same five, and each one becomes visible differently.
Technical risk
Structure, load-bearing capacity, contaminants, building services. It becomes visible through a technical due diligence before acquisition, not through the vendor's data room.
Legal and permit risk
Grandfathered rights (Bestandsschutz), whether an intended change of use or additional storey is permissible at all, and undisclosed Baulasten, public-law encumbrances registered against the plot rather than in the land register. It becomes visible by reading the building file at the authority and testing the question with a Bauvoranfrage.
Programme risk
Procurement procedures, delivery times, and processing times at the permitting authority. It becomes visible in a programme that carries explicit float for authorities and trades instead of ignoring them.
Cost risk
Variations arising from what the existing building was hiding, and price movement during the construction period. It becomes visible in a cost frame that shows its risk allowances separately rather than smoothing them into the total.
Letting and sales risk
Whether a use concept carries at that location often only shows in letting. It becomes visible when the feasibility study and the market picture come before the concept decision, not after it.
Four tests you can apply to any number you are handed.
The level of accuracy is stated
A Kostenschätzung on benchmark rates is a different instrument from a Kostenberechnung to DIN 276 with real component quantities. A usable cost frame says which one it is, and when it becomes firmer.
Risk positions shown separately
Variations in existing buildings are the rule, not the exception. A cost frame without its own visible risk position was under-calculated from the first day.
Quantities instead of lump sums, as soon as possible
While only benchmarks exist, every figure is an estimate. The further the design advances, the more the cost frame must rest on real quantities.
Updating as routine
A cost frame set up once and never touched again loses its meaning precisely when it would matter most.
Three mandate models, deliberately different in depth.
Single service
One clearly bounded piece of work, a technical due diligence, a feasibility study, a single pre-check. Appropriate when you have your own project management and need technical depth at one point.
Continuous project management
A mandate along the AHO Heft 9 model, the German standard scope for project management services, over the whole project, with defined handover points between stages. You remain owner and risk carrier; we control the interfaces.
Development management
Milestone-based remuneration where development capability is missing in-house or needs supplementing: from securing the site through planning permission to handover to sales or operations.
Three German terms that will appear in any contract we send you.
Stufenvertrag
STAGED APPOINTMENT
Stage one is firmly commissioned; the later stages are options with a stated call-off period. It keeps your exposure to a single stage while giving us continuity if the project proceeds.
AHO Heft 9
STANDARD SCOPE FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The German reference document that defines what project management services actually contain, stage by stage. Naming it in a contract removes most of the later argument about what was owed.
Baulast
PUBLIC-LAW ENCUMBRANCE ON A PLOT
A duty a landowner accepts towards the building authority, an access right, a distance obligation, recorded in a separate register, not in the Grundbuch. It binds a purchaser and is routinely missed in foreign-led acquisitions.
An asset on the table, or a portfolio to review?
Send us the address and what you intend to do with it. You will get a scope and a fixed fee, in English, and nothing leaves our desk.
Everything we publish in English.
Overview
Who we are, what we do and how a project with us starts.
Services
Project development, project management, permit design and technical assessment.
Expert reports
Building damage, moisture, handover inspections and valuation opinions.
Building in Germany
Architektenkammer, Bauantrag, HOAI Leistungsphasen and the weight of an expert report.
International
German design delivered to projects outside Germany, with a local architect of record.
About us
The two people behind Alpha Quadrat and the network around them.
Contact
Send us your project or RFP. A personal reply within one business day.
THE GERMAN SITE IS CONSIDERABLY LARGER. IF YOU READ GERMAN, START AT ALPHA-QUADRAT.DE.