We have introduced the ELK brand, which has been producing components for construction in South Bohemia since 1989, to you in previous issues of our magazine. It is a traditional company with experience in the field of timber-framed buildings in Austria and Germany, where it has become the market leader.
Michal Biem is the sales manager for standard family houses and individual construction for end clients at ELK CZ. This implies that their typical customer is not a company with a large project, but families or couples who have decided to buy their own house.
ELK entered the Czech timber-framed building market at the beginning of this year…
Let’s say that we have been in the Czech market for about six months and we have been preparing for this since the turn of the year, when we started talking to customers. And we have also launched our website www.elk.cz, which we continuously work on. Now, we can work better with those who do not want to meet us right away and just learn who we are, how we work and other information on the website.
What kind of information?
We are an Austrian company that has been in the market for more than 65 years, has been through more than 50,000 implementations, etc. At the same time, the website also contains details of interiors, exteriors, i.e. what materials the walls are made of, what interior styles we use, when we deliver a turnkey house to a client, etc. There we naturally also present our standard houses, and one can also find our contact forms there. Once the interested party, which can be an ordinary end consumer as well as a company or developer, fills it in, we contact them and provide them with the first general information about ELK, what we offer, what options they have with us… And as we opened the ELK Experience Center in Prague 6 in June, we can invite everyone to our new showroom and discuss the options.
What can the interested parties learn at the first personal meeting?
What interests them most. Either they just want general information, or they come with a specific idea and are looking for a solution. And we proceed accordingly.
Your experience comes from the Austrian and German markets. But each market is a little different and clients may have slightly different requirements. What have you learnt in the six months of being in operation in Czechia? What is your clientele?
We are mostly approached by someone looking for a supplier for their dream house who can provide them with comprehensive services that they have no capacity for themselves. They do not have the opportunity nor time to outsource it to someone else and are more of people looking for, let’s say, a premium type of building. The advantage is – as we say: one partner, one contract! The clients only deal with us; we solve everything for them. If something that requires an investor’s decision arises, we go to the clients and present them with option A, B or C – and they tell us which path they want to take.
So, you have important initial information from the interested party. How do you further work with it?
We start adapting the project to match the information obtained. The clients who come to us are of two subcategories. One likes the standard house, that being what we have in our offer and with which we have also succeeded in the Austrian and German markets. Our houses are well thought out and follow the housing trends that we are still trying to upgrade. Specifically, these are the Next houses that we launched onto the market in April in several variants – the master bedroom is ensuit, comes with its own dressing room and is on a different side of the building than the children’s rooms or guestrooms. This means that everyone has their own privacy, and the middle of the house is a kind of a ‘meeting’ part.
And the other, let’s say, subcategory?
These are customers who come to us with their own idea, and perhaps also with a project. Sometimes – if possible – we transfer the design to the ELK construction system and prepare an approximate calculation for the client. If it does not resemble any of our standard houses, we naturally process clients’ individual ideas.
And what if I do not have any design? Just a vague idea!
Then we have our architects, who can make a draft of the house in our construction system and present it to you, the customer, as something the design of the building should realistically look like. Or you can bring your own architect, who can then draw it in our construction system, which is the easiest way for us.
What if it’s still not quite ‘it’?
You can continue to dictate what you would like to modify. We also have to check out the land so that the selected house can be built there. Further we need to find out what the subsoil is like and how the foundation slab can be placed, and also check all local regulations so that everything is in compliance. Then we prepare a calculation, which we present to you and you can then decide whether you want to carry out the construction or not.
How does the process continue once the architect’s design is approved?
After signing the contract, we process the building permit and put the order into production. Then, together with the client, we start to deal with the interiors, distinguishing the construction according to the stage of completion – rough structure, shell & core, turnkey or ready to move in. Together, we then discuss the details such as the layout and number and location of electrical and data sockets, what surfaces are to be in the bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms, whether there will be shading on all windows or only in some rooms, etc. All this is dealt with during the building permit process. The foundation slab is laid when the house goes into production.
And what is, in the meantime, happening in your production plant?
We prefabricate everything, which means that the house plans that we defined with the customer end up right there. Our specialists prepare complete walls in covered halls under constant conditions, just as they do with houses for Austria and Germany.
The finished parts are then transported from the production halls to the construction site.
Yes, we load the finished walls onto a lorry, bring them to the site and a crane anchors them to the prepared foundation slab. The structure already has windows, electric roller shutters, an entrance door and a roof installed in the walls, and the basic price includes concrete roof tiles and aluminium gutters and downpipes. This is our lowest level, which we refer to as a rough structure. If we agree that you want a turnkey or ready to move-in building, then we finish the interiors, i.e. complete the bathrooms and install the interior doors and all surfaces. If you want the ready to move-in option, it also comes with an equipped kitchen. Some items are not installed until on site because, for instance, an installed sink could be damaged on the lorry on the way.
So, we have a rough structure on site…
It is actually the lowest level of the house we build for you. The price, which is fixed for 12 months, includes the surveying of the land, familiarization with local regulations, etc.
What if I want to build, but I don’t have any land yet. How do I proceed?
This is a complicated situation. Land used to be more affordable. Nowadays, its price already forms a significant part of the investment, especially if you want to live close to Prague. We had a client who told us that the budget was not a problem, she had CZK 17 million and wanted a large, really well-equipped and high-quality house. I thought it was great to have such a budget for a house, but then it turned out that they had no land, but they didn’t want to be too far from Prague. This suddenly reduced the budget for the house by almost half and we ended up with a completely different size of the house and quality of equipment… But on the other hand, we are approached by land-owners who ask us to mediate the sale because they cannot find a buyer. Sometimes, it seems overpriced, but it simply depends on local conditions. Other times the land may be more complicated in terms of layout. That happens quite often. When a customer does not have a plot of land, he eventually finds one and sees the high total amount. Then he is not entirely sure that he will be able to build his dream house at all.
What influences the decision of interested parties the most?
They suddenly find out that there are some local regulations and that they should consider how wide the house will be, how far it should be from the neighbours and what kind of development is to be there… They are overwhelmed with new information because they have to work during the day, and the idea of their dream home bothers them more than it pleases them. So, they finally decide to buy another apartment, maybe somewhere else, maybe bigger or perhaps for investment.
What is ELK’s solution?
We presented one company with a way as to how to sell land better and faster. We proposed them the options of what type of our house they could build and what specific modifications we could make to the house so that it would ‘fit’ the plot. The owner can then sell the land straight away, including the price of our standard house. A higher level would be the sale of land with a submitted or processed building permit for a standard house. Even if you eventually want to slightly modify the house or exchange it for a different model, we can change the building plan within the building permit, but we naturally have to comply with local regulations. It is easier for potential buyers as they can see that for CZK 20 million, they have a plot of land near Prague and a beautiful turnkey house, in which they actually have everything and don’t have to deal with anything. We know the fixed price and once the building permit is issued, we also know when the project is to be assigned for production and therefore what the delivery time is.
That is a great advantage for planning. Will it also bring any financial savings?
It will certainly allow for price certainty. Traditional construction of a different house type takes two to three years, so it cannot secure a fixed price. Before you start building, you select or tender for suppliers who, in the meantime, constantly change their prices. But when you have a price from us, you can be sure that it will not change and that you will get what you want.
In Austria and Germany, you are more likely to be approached by clients who don’t have a plot of land yet, but rather come to look at the houses you offer just to get an idea. Then they look for a suitable plot of land based on the house they have chosen. In our country, clients usually own the land that has been lying fallow for a long time because it is complicated and they don’t know what to do next. They approach you and get an idea of how to solve it.
We can confirm this 100%. In Austria, we often encounter situations where a customer simply wants a house from ELK. We have been on the market there for a very long time and are well established there. Our NOW series represents houses that have been tested for years and are constantly being improved in order to reflect new trends, but they are also very practical. Czech clients are just starting to find out what we have to offer. And the thing really is that the client owns the land and is looking for what he can do there.
You offer different options so that everyone can find a solution for how to deal with their land…
For instance, we have clients who had a large inherited plot of land that they decided to divide, for example 3,000 sq m. They kept 2,000 sq m and are now looking for investment opportunities for the second part in order to financially help their children with their housing elsewhere. They approached us with the fact that they were trying to sell a plot that is narrow and long, but no one was interested. So, they thought of building a house there, but they didn’t know how to make it not look ugly while they are to neighbour it. And what would we suggest?
That is a great opportunity for ELK – to help find a solution!
And that is exactly the case when we say that it’s not a problem. We have several standard houses on offer and we can modify them in any way. If you would like something to your liking, it is not a problem. But individual construction is always influenced by your opinion and feelings. When we provide the client with one of our standard houses, we know that it will suit them – after some modifications, for instance – because we have implemented more than 50,000 standard type house types. So, I dare say that we know what we are doing. We know that our houses are well-designed, and we know the clients who come to us like our houses. Standard houses have certain predefined options, because, for instance, we were approached by several clients saying that they would like the house but with a corner bay window. So, we implemented it for them as we did for the previous ones and then, for simplicity, we included it in our standard offer…
What are ELK’s future plans?
We will be happy if we are approached by more companies or perhaps students to whom we can introduce how our system works and why we think it is good. And also, why we do not want to do it in any other way. We have been in the market for 65 years; this is the way we do it and it works for us. If we did it differently, it might not work. And if we were always trying something new, we might not have been in the market for those 65 years… We have been through more than 50,000 implementations and also clients who rate us positively. A little sidelight to conclude: in Austria, we already have three generations of clients, who live in ELK houses, coming to us. They say that they would like an ELK house because they grew up in it and their parents grew up in it. That seems to me like a beautiful example of quality and ideal advertising.
Arnošt Wagner
Photo: Bohdan Štoček and ELK archive