ᐅ Architect or Building Contractor?

Order catalogs from three home builders to be sent to your home. If you find something in there that you would accept without changes, have a detailed quote prepared for it. You can also get one from a local general contractor or design-build contractor. If you have your own ideas, consult an architect.

If I owned a plot of land, I would have built with an architect (at least I would have tried to find a suitable one).

Otherwise, definitely follow the advice from Jochen104 (see #4)!

BeHaElJa schrieb:
Designs are a service and must be paid for. Large general contractors and certainly some smaller ones often see this service as part of their marketing to attract customers and provide modified catalog floor plans free of charge... unfortunately, the quality is often reflective of that. An architect will expect compensation for this—sometimes a flat fee, sometimes with the offer to credit it if you commission the full project—this is at least our experience.

I actually don’t quite agree with that, at least not in general. We are building with a prefab house supplier and I expected to receive house designs (floor plans, elevations, perspectives) as part of their customer acquisition. Providers who didn’t offer this were unfortunately out of the running. But that was only one out of four. In this industry, investing in customer acquisition is necessary.

For my girlfriend, who is a teacher, this was strange and she felt uneasy about the providers we ultimately didn’t choose. But since I know this process from my own work experience (I once worked five man-days for free), I was familiar with such procedures.

It may be somewhat different with an architect, since they have to create a design from scratch, whereas prefab house suppliers usually work with existing floor plans. But even the supplier we chose fully implemented our desired layout, at least on the ground floor. So the effort probably wasn’t insignificant. It was worthwhile for them in the end, since they were awarded the contract.

Best regards,
Christian

As I wrote, it is already available for free... so it is as expected.

BeHaElJa schrieb:
As I wrote, there are some for free... accordingly, that is how it is.

Hello,

I wouldn’t quite agree with that.

With our provider, there was a custom design tailored to us and several rounds of revisions before we signed a contract and incurred any costs.

This works with both solid construction and prefabricated house providers.

Regards,

Dirk

It is also quite possible that we were just unlucky, or that our plot (second row) and requirements (bedrooms and master bathroom on the ground floor) were somewhat out of the ordinary.

It probably depends heavily on the consultant/company, as we have had both experiences. One design was done carelessly with only minor adjustments made. The design from the other provider was genuinely well done.