Custom Residential Architects Network

Most of us are clinging to middle class status, yet we design buildings and spaces that are well beyond our personal budgets. I think most of us would easily say that we couldn't afford our own fees if we were to hire us to renovate our home. The Low end Residential market is by far the most bountiful resource for work. People can't sell houses, but life moves on. People need more space for babies, new spouses, the recent college grad. Residential Designers are not equipped to handle difficult structural/ spacial problems and often create simplistic dysfunctional solutions for complicated renovation projects. There is a real need for Architects in this area and the sole practitioner is a perfect fit. 

When we focus our fee structures, list of services, and business models on the wealthy clients, then we economically isolate ourselves to a small market of wonderfully expensive projects. At the end of the day, Rolex does pretty good, but Walmart does better by selling to the masses. We have conditioned ourselves to think more documents are necessary for our own protection, yet providing more documents for a lawyer to sift through never helped anyone. We need to make our services available to middle class clients if we want our profession to make a real impact on society. Let's face it, the majority of Americans live in terrible houses and they fall in love with this garbage, so this is what they expect from buildings. It all starts with the home. I've explained in detail before how I've reduced my services to a good idea and a set of drawings for a permit for the pathetically small projects and have managed to make better money per hour than I do on commercial work. It's the concept of charging a minimum set up fee for small bare bones projects vs bundling many services for a discount for large swanky projects. The small projects are always affordable and available in quantity. Renovation clients are the people banks give $100K loans to all day long. This is unaccounted for in the "housing starts" stats, but it's out there, everywhere. Don't be afraid of designing in your neighborhood. All of us should be as a community service effort.

Every day I encounter people in the housing industry that live in a world without Architects. I have a spec house renovator client that I'm "dating" right now that is a classic example of what's wrong with the standard housing development process in this country. Now I'm a believer in a true free market, but it's the spirit of amateurism that made our country great that allows the unqualified to make the decisions about what our built environment looks like. Now we have a lawyer and an accountant that are new to the game and they think they have it all figured out. Neither looks at beauty in terms of physical form, but rather in which house has sold the most units. These guys are always attracted to the worst new construction spec houses, so they want to renovate old houses in that "style". They worry about building a house that won't sell, so they look at the houses they find the most in the MLS listings. When they see a certain house sell many times, they see success and that's beautiful to them. This what I call chasing your tail. I quickly pointed out that these houses are always selling $100k less than my unique spec houses because they are mass produced. No one wants to live in the same house as their neighbor, we just give them little choice. This is also how terrible designs keep being perpetuated. They mistake over saturation of a bad design for market desirability. 

The deciders about our built environment are often people just like this who could care less if they're selling houses, fish, hot tubs, or urinal cakes. It's just a commodity to many of the people that buy properties to develop them, so I like to meet these people and educate them. If we want to win over the hearts of the masses, then why are we mostly designing for the wealthy few? We must bring good design to the regular home owner and we'll expand our profession and raise our worth. If we can get builders to start competing with quality, then we'll become valuable quickly. Right now competing with quantity isn't going to work, so I've already seen home builders in my area changing course. These guys found me because I design spec houses and they sell well. There is no other way to test your worth at market, so embrace the horrible spec builders and change them. This is a great opportunity for us to insert ourselves into this sector and start raising the design bar from the bottom up. Give them a minimal fee for the minimal amount of work and you open the door to a huge wealth of opportunities you could have never participated in before. The best part of this type of work is the extremely low bar of expectations. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

"minimal fee for a minimal amount of work" means a smaller amount of design input, so I suppose what you are proposing is an increase in the quantity of projects worked on. 


Dave Brach
Brach Design Architecture
Salt Lake City UT




Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2011 22:18
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

Most of us are clinging to middle class status, yet we design buildings and spaces that are well beyond our personal budgets. I think most of us would easily say that we couldn't afford our own fees if we were to hire us to renovate our home. The Low end Residential market is by far the most bountiful resource for work. People can't sell houses, but life moves on. People need more space for babies, new spouses, the recent college grad. Residential Designers are not equipped to handle difficult structural/ spacial problems and often create simplistic dysfunctional solutions for complicated renovation projects. There is a real need for Architects in this area and the sole practitioner is a perfect fit. 

When we focus our fee structures, list of services, and business models on the wealthy clients, then we economically isolate ourselves to a small market of wonderfully expensive projects. At the end of the day, Rolex does pretty good, but Walmart does better by selling to the masses. We have conditioned ourselves to think more documents are necessary for our own protection, yet providing more documents for a lawyer to sift through never helped anyone. We need to make our services available to middle class clients if we want our profession to make a real impact on society. Let's face it, the majority of Americans live in terrible houses and they fall in love with this garbage, so this is what they expect from buildings. It all starts with the home. I've explained in detail before how I've reduced my services to a good idea and a set of drawings for a permit for the pathetically small projects and have managed to make better money per hour than I do on commercial work. It's the concept of charging a minimum set up fee for small bare bones projects vs bundling many services for a discount for large swanky projects. The small projects are always affordable and available in quantity. Renovation clients are the people banks give $100K loans to all day long. This is unaccounted for in the "housing starts" stats, but it's out there, everywhere. Don't be afraid of designing in your neighborhood. All of us should be as a community service effort.

Every day I encounter people in the housing industry that live in a world without Architects. I have a spec house renovator client that I'm "dating" right now that is a classic example of what's wrong with the standard housing development process in this country. Now I'm a believer in a true free market, but it's the spirit of amateurism that made our country great that allows the unqualified to make the decisions about what our built environment looks like. Now we have a lawyer and an accountant that are new to the game and they think they have it all figured out. Neither looks at beauty in terms of physical form, but rather in which house has sold the most units. These guys are always attracted to the worst new construction spec houses, so they want to renovate old houses in that "style". They worry about building a house that won't sell, so they look at the houses they find the most in the MLS listings. When they see a certain house sell many times, they see success and that's beautiful to them. This what I call chasing your tail. I quickly pointed out that these houses are always selling $100k less than my unique spec houses because they are mass produced. No one wants to live in the same house as their neighbor, we just give them little choice. This is also how terrible designs keep being perpetuated. They mistake over saturation of a bad design for market desirability. 

The deciders about our built environment are often people just like this who could care less if they're selling houses, fish, hot tubs, or urinal cakes. It's just a commodity to many of the people that buy properties to develop them, so I like to meet these people and educate them. If we want to win over the hearts of the masses, then why are we mostly designing for the wealthy few? We must bring good design to the regular home owner and we'll expand our profession and raise our worth. If we can get builders to start competing with quality, then we'll become valuable quickly. Right now competing with quantity isn't going to work, so I've already seen home builders in my area changing course. These guys found me because I design spec houses and they sell well. There is no other way to test your worth at market, so embrace the horrible spec builders and change them. This is a great opportunity for us to insert ourselves into this sector and start raising the design bar from the bottom up. Give them a minimal fee for the minimal amount of work and you open the door to a huge wealth of opportunities you could have never participated in before. The best part of this type of work is the extremely low bar of expectations. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

When we charge 5 figures for a house design, do you think a person making $50k a year can afford to pay about half their annual earnings on drawings? Can you afford yourself? We're mostly chasing clients with 6-7 figure salaries, the 1-3%ers. Imagine how many smaller renovation projects with a budget around $100k you can find vs people building million dollar houses right now. 3% of the people vs 97%. This work is out there, everywhere. I'm in a city that was in the top ten of foreclosed areas and I believe the last stat I heard, nearly 56% of Atlanta is underwater on their mortgages. This means people can't sell their homes to buy bigger homes when they have kids and get married. Yes! I'm saying do less work for regular people clients and MANY, MANY more clients will be able to afford you. In order to even participate in the vast majority of residential work, we need to come to reality and let go of some control. Your consultants certainly get the smaller fee, but for doing MUCH less work than you. Think of yourself as a builder's consultant and you're replacing those awful plan book designs with a unique design, whether it's a new spec, renovated spec, or a homeowner's project.

I work with several builders that are competent finish, equipment selectors, as this is how they compete with each other when using the same plan over and over. I've convinced them use unique plans for each house because my fee works with their budgets and they only need the bare minimum drawings. They shop with the clients using their resources and I get the final say at the end. I spend 1 hour at that meeting and the builder probably spends 40-50 hours shopping. That's a fee killer. The standard Architect's business model and list of services is designed for a very small and specific group of wealthy people that can afford them. We need to change our strategy of trying to soak every client we can of every service known to man. We're all fishing out of the same tiny pond with the same lure, while I'm over here fishing in the sea with live bait. Small, low budget projects are design problems like any other. Most of my house project's construction costs are about $50-100k for small additions, average spec houses at $200-300k (renovated or new) and up to about $700k for the nicer, new houses. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? Each level of work requires a more detailed list of services, so a $50k renovation gets the bare minimum while the $700k project may use a full list of services. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? I don't need curtain wall, W sections, and aluminum sun shades to design a nice building. If we want regular people to appreciate good design, then we have to be willing to design houses for them using items they can afford.

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-30-2011 11:34
From: David Brach
Subject: Low Res

"minimal fee for a minimal amount of work" means a smaller amount of design input, so I suppose what you are proposing is an increase in the quantity of projects worked on. 


Dave Brach
Brach Design Architecture
Salt Lake City UT



-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2011 22:18
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

Most of us are clinging to middle class status, yet we design buildings and spaces that are well beyond our personal budgets. I think most of us would easily say that we couldn't afford our own fees if we were to hire us to renovate our home. The Low end Residential market is by far the most bountiful resource for work. People can't sell houses, but life moves on. People need more space for babies, new spouses, the recent college grad. Residential Designers are not equipped to handle difficult structural/ spacial problems and often create simplistic dysfunctional solutions for complicated renovation projects. There is a real need for Architects in this area and the sole practitioner is a perfect fit. 

When we focus our fee structures, list of services, and business models on the wealthy clients, then we economically isolate ourselves to a small market of wonderfully expensive projects. At the end of the day, Rolex does pretty good, but Walmart does better by selling to the masses. We have conditioned ourselves to think more documents are necessary for our own protection, yet providing more documents for a lawyer to sift through never helped anyone. We need to make our services available to middle class clients if we want our profession to make a real impact on society. Let's face it, the majority of Americans live in terrible houses and they fall in love with this garbage, so this is what they expect from buildings. It all starts with the home. I've explained in detail before how I've reduced my services to a good idea and a set of drawings for a permit for the pathetically small projects and have managed to make better money per hour than I do on commercial work. It's the concept of charging a minimum set up fee for small bare bones projects vs bundling many services for a discount for large swanky projects. The small projects are always affordable and available in quantity. Renovation clients are the people banks give $100K loans to all day long. This is unaccounted for in the "housing starts" stats, but it's out there, everywhere. Don't be afraid of designing in your neighborhood. All of us should be as a community service effort.

Every day I encounter people in the housing industry that live in a world without Architects. I have a spec house renovator client that I'm "dating" right now that is a classic example of what's wrong with the standard housing development process in this country. Now I'm a believer in a true free market, but it's the spirit of amateurism that made our country great that allows the unqualified to make the decisions about what our built environment looks like. Now we have a lawyer and an accountant that are new to the game and they think they have it all figured out. Neither looks at beauty in terms of physical form, but rather in which house has sold the most units. These guys are always attracted to the worst new construction spec houses, so they want to renovate old houses in that "style". They worry about building a house that won't sell, so they look at the houses they find the most in the MLS listings. When they see a certain house sell many times, they see success and that's beautiful to them. This what I call chasing your tail. I quickly pointed out that these houses are always selling $100k less than my unique spec houses because they are mass produced. No one wants to live in the same house as their neighbor, we just give them little choice. This is also how terrible designs keep being perpetuated. They mistake over saturation of a bad design for market desirability. 

The deciders about our built environment are often people just like this who could care less if they're selling houses, fish, hot tubs, or urinal cakes. It's just a commodity to many of the people that buy properties to develop them, so I like to meet these people and educate them. If we want to win over the hearts of the masses, then why are we mostly designing for the wealthy few? We must bring good design to the regular home owner and we'll expand our profession and raise our worth. If we can get builders to start competing with quality, then we'll become valuable quickly. Right now competing with quantity isn't going to work, so I've already seen home builders in my area changing course. These guys found me because I design spec houses and they sell well. There is no other way to test your worth at market, so embrace the horrible spec builders and change them. This is a great opportunity for us to insert ourselves into this sector and start raising the design bar from the bottom up. Give them a minimal fee for the minimal amount of work and you open the door to a huge wealth of opportunities you could have never participated in before. The best part of this type of work is the extremely low bar of expectations. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

Eric,

Thanks for the post.  You make some very fine points and I generally agree with your comments, however, I take exception to the excerpt below.  This is a public forum for anyone to see, so making such a broad statement about the "standard business model" of your colleagues is misleading.  I, for one, do not have a practice geared entirely to wealthy individuals, and never "soak" anyone.  By way of example: we recently completed a $13M renovation to a 5 acre estate. We designed and orchestrated all the way down to the custom finial on the custom bronze fencing.  Hundred of hours of very high level design and a fee in the six-figures over two and a half years.  Yesterday a neighbor walked into my office, unannounced (as I have a storefront on the main drag in town), and asked me to design a small back porch to her beloved 1920's home. I can certainly do it for her, and maybe even make enough profit to take my wife to dinner. That's a win-win in my book.  Will I commit an associate, project manager, and staff to this project like the $13M estate - no way.  I'll sketch it out, meet with the client, recommend a good builder, and have my junior architect draft it for permits. High design - appropriate services - reasonable fee - happy client.

I doubt that my firm is unique in the ability to service different types of clients, and bet that the average member following this list does the same thing every day. No fancy business models, professional marketing plans, or subversive agendas - just a lot of hard work providing services for their communities to feed their families.

-------------------------------------------
Andrew Fethes AIA
President
Andrew Fethes Architects PA
Oradell NJ
-------------------------------------------



Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2011 07:52
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res



The standard Architect's business model and list of services is designed for a very small and specific group of wealthy people that can afford them. We need to change our strategy of trying to soak every client we can of every service known to man. We're all fishing out of the same tiny pond with the same lure, while I'm over here fishing in the sea with live bait. Small, low budget projects are design problems like any other. Most of my house project's construction costs are about $50-100k for small additions, average spec houses at $200-300k (renovated or new) and up to about $700k for the nicer, new houses. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? Each level of work requires a more detailed list of services, so a $50k renovation gets the bare minimum while the $700k project may use a full list of services. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? I don't need curtain wall, W sections, and aluminum sun shades to design a nice building. If we want regular people to appreciate good design, then we have to be willing to design houses for them using items they can afford.

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

OK, now let's not be too sensitive here. A standard list of Architect's services and the minimum information required for a residential building permit are quite far apart and I think it's clear that this is what I'm talking about. A master suite addition for a middle class homeowner does not need specification manuals, finish schedules, trim details, RCPs, etc. The key here is to do exactly what you're saying. Recognize who your client is and the level of service that's appropriate for their needs, so you can provide a fee appropriate for their budget and your worth. Low end residential work isn't for everyone, nor are bad corporate boxes. We all must eat and we tend to take on work that is simply meant to put food on the table. Whether it's a glamorous strip mall, a gas station, or a bathroom addition to a house, we all can't be the Star-chitect. Someone has to do the work that doesn't end up in a magazine and from my vantage point, this country isn't exactly overflowing with great Architecture.

How can all of us be designing the best buildings for the wealthiest clients? How can America be beautiful if the Architects only work for the rich? I see an America full of bad buildings and it's not just the houses, but I believe America's problem has a lot less to do with a lack of taste on the part of the average person and more to do with a lack of choice. The decision makers that populate our built environment with junk are the speculative home builders, Corporate board members, and those who see beauty in terms of bottom line numbers, not the average person's personal choices. The average person has little say in the matter, since they can't afford waiting 6 months for a house to be built while paying both a mortgage and rent, nor do they get a say about what the next Walmart model looks like. It's our job to insert ourselves into the system, whether we like it or not. It's our job to intercept these decision makers and help them, not ignore them. People will buy better designs if we simply offer them. After 8-9 years in this one area, I have yet to see a cookie cutter home sell for more than one of my unique spec houses. The market has spoken and I'm clearly not the most talented among us. I have 100% faith that all of you can see the same results.

We can't prove design matters to a money-o-centric society until we start selling our houses at spec. Only a spec house gets new value per sf and gives you instant market feedback about the desirability of your work. Items that sell are deemed desirable. Remember bell bottoms, parachute pants, and butterfly collars? They were all goofy fashions, yet they sold well at the time and were deemed very desirable. People buy designer products at inflated prices because they sell well. In a consumer based society, selling well tends to enhance or justify beauty. The illusion of selling well can be created through the over saturation of the market place. We have an over saturation of bad buildings, making the well designed buildings more rare creating an illusion that bad work sells more copies and therefore must be more desirable. This is the same mentality that compels us to buy parachute pants and butterfly collars. If others like, I must like it? We simply need to provide more choices and I know we can provide the better selection. We need to make Architect designed houses the most popular and desirable choice and then we'll see our place in society take a few steps forward. People love their homes, but their attachment to the grocery store and bank are not so great. Who has a childhood memory of Grandma's bank?

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-02-2011 09:43
From: Andrew Fethes
Subject: Low Res

Eric,

Thanks for the post.  You make some very fine points and I generally agree with your comments, however, I take exception to the excerpt below.  This is a public forum for anyone to see, so making such a broad statement about the "standard business model" of your colleagues is misleading.  I, for one, do not have a practice geared entirely to wealthy individuals, and never "soak" anyone.  By way of example: we recently completed a $13M renovation to a 5 acre estate. We designed and orchestrated all the way down to the custom finial on the custom bronze fencing.  Hundred of hours of very high level design and a fee in the six-figures over two and a half years.  Yesterday a neighbor walked into my office, unannounced (as I have a storefront on the main drag in town), and asked me to design a small back porch to her beloved 1920's home. I can certainly do it for her, and maybe even make enough profit to take my wife to dinner. That's a win-win in my book.  Will I commit an associate, project manager, and staff to this project like the $13M estate - no way.  I'll sketch it out, meet with the client, recommend a good builder, and have my junior architect draft it for permits. High design - appropriate services - reasonable fee - happy client.

I doubt that my firm is unique in the ability to service different types of clients, and bet that the average member following this list does the same thing every day. No fancy business models, professional marketing plans, or subversive agendas - just a lot of hard work providing services for their communities to feed their families.

-------------------------------------------
Andrew Fethes AIA
President
Andrew Fethes Architects PA
Oradell NJ
-------------------------------------------


-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2011 07:52
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res



The standard Architect's business model and list of services is designed for a very small and specific group of wealthy people that can afford them. We need to change our strategy of trying to soak every client we can of every service known to man. We're all fishing out of the same tiny pond with the same lure, while I'm over here fishing in the sea with live bait. Small, low budget projects are design problems like any other. Most of my house project's construction costs are about $50-100k for small additions, average spec houses at $200-300k (renovated or new) and up to about $700k for the nicer, new houses. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? Each level of work requires a more detailed list of services, so a $50k renovation gets the bare minimum while the $700k project may use a full list of services. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? I don't need curtain wall, W sections, and aluminum sun shades to design a nice building. If we want regular people to appreciate good design, then we have to be willing to design houses for them using items they can afford.

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

Eric, amen to everything you've said in both of these posts.

I would like to add: There's an even larger untapped ocean of work in the range below $50k for a home renovation. My fee for these jobs is combined with the builder's fee, so we aren't cheaper than Joe Pickup, but Joe Pickup isn't giving the owner professional advice on design decisions, isn't basing his estimate on an accurate set of design documents and isn't preparing complete contract and permit documents. FHA 203(k) loans require that level of documentation but are seldom above the $50k mark.

I've got so many projects to do in so little time that I'm starting to interview for draftsmen. And to make it work, I finish more projects in a month now than I used to finish in a year. I'll let you know sometime in the middle of next year if there's any money in this.

-------------------------------------------
Sean Catherall, AIA
Herriman UT
-------------------------------------------


Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2011 07:52
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

When we charge 5 figures for a house design, do you think a person making $50k a year can afford to pay about half their annual earnings on drawings? Can you afford yourself? We're mostly chasing clients with 6-7 figure salaries, the 1-3%ers. Imagine how many smaller renovation projects with a budget around $100k you can find vs people building million dollar houses right now. 3% of the people vs 97%. This work is out there, everywhere. I'm in a city that was in the top ten of foreclosed areas and I believe the last stat I heard, nearly 56% of Atlanta is underwater on their mortgages. This means people can't sell their homes to buy bigger homes when they have kids and get married. Yes! I'm saying do less work for regular people clients and MANY, MANY more clients will be able to afford you. In order to even participate in the vast majority of residential work, we need to come to reality and let go of some control. Your consultants certainly get the smaller fee, but for doing MUCH less work than you. Think of yourself as a builder's consultant and you're replacing those awful plan book designs with a unique design, whether it's a new spec, renovated spec, or a homeowner's project.

I work with several builders that are competent finish, equipment selectors, as this is how they compete with each other when using the same plan over and over. I've convinced them use unique plans for each house because my fee works with their budgets and they only need the bare minimum drawings. They shop with the clients using their resources and I get the final say at the end. I spend 1 hour at that meeting and the builder probably spends 40-50 hours shopping. That's a fee killer. The standard Architect's business model and list of services is designed for a very small and specific group of wealthy people that can afford them. We need to change our strategy of trying to soak every client we can of every service known to man. We're all fishing out of the same tiny pond with the same lure, while I'm over here fishing in the sea with live bait. Small, low budget projects are design problems like any other. Most of my house project's construction costs are about $50-100k for small additions, average spec houses at $200-300k (renovated or new) and up to about $700k for the nicer, new houses. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? Each level of work requires a more detailed list of services, so a $50k renovation gets the bare minimum while the $700k project may use a full list of services. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? I don't need curtain wall, W sections, and aluminum sun shades to design a nice building. If we want regular people to appreciate good design, then we have to be willing to design houses for them using items they can afford.

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

The smaller, the more money you earn per hour. Minimum set up fee vs bundling services. Good luck to you and I'd love to hear how it's going in the future. Help some of these college grads out while bringing good design to the masses. These little jobs always lead to the bigger and better ones.

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-02-2011 19:06
From: Sean Catherall
Subject: Low Res

Eric, amen to everything you've said in both of these posts.

I would like to add: There's an even larger untapped ocean of work in the range below $50k for a home renovation. My fee for these jobs is combined with the builder's fee, so we aren't cheaper than Joe Pickup, but Joe Pickup isn't giving the owner professional advice on design decisions, isn't basing his estimate on an accurate set of design documents and isn't preparing complete contract and permit documents. FHA 203(k) loans require that level of documentation but are seldom above the $50k mark.

I've got so many projects to do in so little time that I'm starting to interview for draftsmen. And to make it work, I finish more projects in a month now than I used to finish in a year. I'll let you know sometime in the middle of next year if there's any money in this.

-------------------------------------------
Sean Catherall, AIA
Herriman UT
-------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2011 07:52
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

When we charge 5 figures for a house design, do you think a person making $50k a year can afford to pay about half their annual earnings on drawings? Can you afford yourself? We're mostly chasing clients with 6-7 figure salaries, the 1-3%ers. Imagine how many smaller renovation projects with a budget around $100k you can find vs people building million dollar houses right now. 3% of the people vs 97%. This work is out there, everywhere. I'm in a city that was in the top ten of foreclosed areas and I believe the last stat I heard, nearly 56% of Atlanta is underwater on their mortgages. This means people can't sell their homes to buy bigger homes when they have kids and get married. Yes! I'm saying do less work for regular people clients and MANY, MANY more clients will be able to afford you. In order to even participate in the vast majority of residential work, we need to come to reality and let go of some control. Your consultants certainly get the smaller fee, but for doing MUCH less work than you. Think of yourself as a builder's consultant and you're replacing those awful plan book designs with a unique design, whether it's a new spec, renovated spec, or a homeowner's project.

I work with several builders that are competent finish, equipment selectors, as this is how they compete with each other when using the same plan over and over. I've convinced them use unique plans for each house because my fee works with their budgets and they only need the bare minimum drawings. They shop with the clients using their resources and I get the final say at the end. I spend 1 hour at that meeting and the builder probably spends 40-50 hours shopping. That's a fee killer. The standard Architect's business model and list of services is designed for a very small and specific group of wealthy people that can afford them. We need to change our strategy of trying to soak every client we can of every service known to man. We're all fishing out of the same tiny pond with the same lure, while I'm over here fishing in the sea with live bait. Small, low budget projects are design problems like any other. Most of my house project's construction costs are about $50-100k for small additions, average spec houses at $200-300k (renovated or new) and up to about $700k for the nicer, new houses. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? Each level of work requires a more detailed list of services, so a $50k renovation gets the bare minimum while the $700k project may use a full list of services. Who says you can't design something nice using the same pieces and parts available to all homebuilders? I don't need curtain wall, W sections, and aluminum sun shades to design a nice building. If we want regular people to appreciate good design, then we have to be willing to design houses for them using items they can afford.

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

How does the saying go...you can lead a horse to water...
There will always be a segment (likely the majority) of the "market" that will not care about architecture or design no matter what. They just aren't wired to think like architects. Better to use your skills and talents where they are valued and appreciated and where you get satisfaction from doing a job well done.

Ever hear of Arcbazar.com? There goes your barrel of fish...but that's a whole differnet discussion.
 

-------------------------------------------
Thomas Klein
Architect
Miller Dunwiddie Architecture
Minneapolis MN
-------------------------------------------






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-30-2011 11:34
From: David Brach
Subject: Low Res

"minimal fee for a minimal amount of work" means a smaller amount of design input, so I suppose what you are proposing is an increase in the quantity of projects worked on. 


Dave Brach
Brach Design Architecture
Salt Lake City UT



-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2011 22:18
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

Most of us are clinging to middle class status, yet we design buildings and spaces that are well beyond our personal budgets. I think most of us would easily say that we couldn't afford our own fees if we were to hire us to renovate our home. The Low end Residential market is by far the most bountiful resource for work. People can't sell houses, but life moves on. People need more space for babies, new spouses, the recent college grad. Residential Designers are not equipped to handle difficult structural/ spacial problems and often create simplistic dysfunctional solutions for complicated renovation projects. There is a real need for Architects in this area and the sole practitioner is a perfect fit. 

When we focus our fee structures, list of services, and business models on the wealthy clients, then we economically isolate ourselves to a small market of wonderfully expensive projects. At the end of the day, Rolex does pretty good, but Walmart does better by selling to the masses. We have conditioned ourselves to think more documents are necessary for our own protection, yet providing more documents for a lawyer to sift through never helped anyone. We need to make our services available to middle class clients if we want our profession to make a real impact on society. Let's face it, the majority of Americans live in terrible houses and they fall in love with this garbage, so this is what they expect from buildings. It all starts with the home. I've explained in detail before how I've reduced my services to a good idea and a set of drawings for a permit for the pathetically small projects and have managed to make better money per hour than I do on commercial work. It's the concept of charging a minimum set up fee for small bare bones projects vs bundling many services for a discount for large swanky projects. The small projects are always affordable and available in quantity. Renovation clients are the people banks give $100K loans to all day long. This is unaccounted for in the "housing starts" stats, but it's out there, everywhere. Don't be afraid of designing in your neighborhood. All of us should be as a community service effort.

Every day I encounter people in the housing industry that live in a world without Architects. I have a spec house renovator client that I'm "dating" right now that is a classic example of what's wrong with the standard housing development process in this country. Now I'm a believer in a true free market, but it's the spirit of amateurism that made our country great that allows the unqualified to make the decisions about what our built environment looks like. Now we have a lawyer and an accountant that are new to the game and they think they have it all figured out. Neither looks at beauty in terms of physical form, but rather in which house has sold the most units. These guys are always attracted to the worst new construction spec houses, so they want to renovate old houses in that "style". They worry about building a house that won't sell, so they look at the houses they find the most in the MLS listings. When they see a certain house sell many times, they see success and that's beautiful to them. This what I call chasing your tail. I quickly pointed out that these houses are always selling $100k less than my unique spec houses because they are mass produced. No one wants to live in the same house as their neighbor, we just give them little choice. This is also how terrible designs keep being perpetuated. They mistake over saturation of a bad design for market desirability. 

The deciders about our built environment are often people just like this who could care less if they're selling houses, fish, hot tubs, or urinal cakes. It's just a commodity to many of the people that buy properties to develop them, so I like to meet these people and educate them. If we want to win over the hearts of the masses, then why are we mostly designing for the wealthy few? We must bring good design to the regular home owner and we'll expand our profession and raise our worth. If we can get builders to start competing with quality, then we'll become valuable quickly. Right now competing with quantity isn't going to work, so I've already seen home builders in my area changing course. These guys found me because I design spec houses and they sell well. There is no other way to test your worth at market, so embrace the horrible spec builders and change them. This is a great opportunity for us to insert ourselves into this sector and start raising the design bar from the bottom up. Give them a minimal fee for the minimal amount of work and you open the door to a huge wealth of opportunities you could have never participated in before. The best part of this type of work is the extremely low bar of expectations. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

I think that is a dangerous assumption. I've known as many, if not more, wealthy clients with worse taste than the younger, more hip adults, that have a much better appreciation for design than the older folks who have been beaten down with negative conditioning, yet have amassed more cash over a longer life time. The problem is an over saturation of bad (lack of) design. The regular guy has very little to choose from, so for choosing what's available we say they have no taste. My business model has been doing well, so I have proven regular folks are craving good design, someone just has to provide it for them to choose. My unique spec houses have outsold all cookie cutters for a consistent 8-9 years now. The same sized house of mine has sold for more than $150k over the comparable builder box. These guys have gone as far as imitating my builder's finishes, cabinets, trim package, and yet they get the same results. Some of these builders have such a lack of respect for design that they just don't get it. The free market keeps agreeing with me and disagreeing with them. This is why I keep encouraging everyone to get out there and design spec houses. There is no other way to prove your designs are more valuable than the track homes. A new spec house will always appraise for more per sf than a beautiful end user house selling used after 10 years. This makes track homes appear more valuable per sf than "Architect Designed" houses. If we don't sell new houses at new house prices, then the builders and realtors will stay convinced that they're providing the better product. Only a spec house can sell as a new house. I have realtors recognizing that maybe my designs are the difference, seeing how different builders are experiencing the same results with my designs. I spoken with other Architects that are experiencing the same thing. I'm telling you, we are the problem. We choose to abandon this sector of America and the riff raff filled the void. We have to make ourselves available before we just give up on them. While the builders can't out Walmart each other with quantity, this the perfect time to get them hooked on quality! They have to make more profit with less houses right now, so what are you waiting for? Let's make design valuable!

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2011 19:21
From: Thomas Klein
Subject: Low Res

How does the saying go...you can lead a horse to water...
There will always be a segment (likely the majority) of the "market" that will not care about architecture or design no matter what. They just aren't wired to think like architects. Better to use your skills and talents where they are valued and appreciated and where you get satisfaction from doing a job well done.

Ever hear of Arcbazar.com? There goes your barrel of fish...but that's a whole differnet discussion.
 

-------------------------------------------
Thomas Klein
Architect
Miller Dunwiddie Architecture
Minneapolis MN
-------------------------------------------





-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-30-2011 11:34
From: David Brach
Subject: Low Res

"minimal fee for a minimal amount of work" means a smaller amount of design input, so I suppose what you are proposing is an increase in the quantity of projects worked on. 


Dave Brach
Brach Design Architecture
Salt Lake City UT



-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2011 22:18
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

Most of us are clinging to middle class status, yet we design buildings and spaces that are well beyond our personal budgets. I think most of us would easily say that we couldn't afford our own fees if we were to hire us to renovate our home. The Low end Residential market is by far the most bountiful resource for work. People can't sell houses, but life moves on. People need more space for babies, new spouses, the recent college grad. Residential Designers are not equipped to handle difficult structural/ spacial problems and often create simplistic dysfunctional solutions for complicated renovation projects. There is a real need for Architects in this area and the sole practitioner is a perfect fit. 

When we focus our fee structures, list of services, and business models on the wealthy clients, then we economically isolate ourselves to a small market of wonderfully expensive projects. At the end of the day, Rolex does pretty good, but Walmart does better by selling to the masses. We have conditioned ourselves to think more documents are necessary for our own protection, yet providing more documents for a lawyer to sift through never helped anyone. We need to make our services available to middle class clients if we want our profession to make a real impact on society. Let's face it, the majority of Americans live in terrible houses and they fall in love with this garbage, so this is what they expect from buildings. It all starts with the home. I've explained in detail before how I've reduced my services to a good idea and a set of drawings for a permit for the pathetically small projects and have managed to make better money per hour than I do on commercial work. It's the concept of charging a minimum set up fee for small bare bones projects vs bundling many services for a discount for large swanky projects. The small projects are always affordable and available in quantity. Renovation clients are the people banks give $100K loans to all day long. This is unaccounted for in the "housing starts" stats, but it's out there, everywhere. Don't be afraid of designing in your neighborhood. All of us should be as a community service effort.

Every day I encounter people in the housing industry that live in a world without Architects. I have a spec house renovator client that I'm "dating" right now that is a classic example of what's wrong with the standard housing development process in this country. Now I'm a believer in a true free market, but it's the spirit of amateurism that made our country great that allows the unqualified to make the decisions about what our built environment looks like. Now we have a lawyer and an accountant that are new to the game and they think they have it all figured out. Neither looks at beauty in terms of physical form, but rather in which house has sold the most units. These guys are always attracted to the worst new construction spec houses, so they want to renovate old houses in that "style". They worry about building a house that won't sell, so they look at the houses they find the most in the MLS listings. When they see a certain house sell many times, they see success and that's beautiful to them. This what I call chasing your tail. I quickly pointed out that these houses are always selling $100k less than my unique spec houses because they are mass produced. No one wants to live in the same house as their neighbor, we just give them little choice. This is also how terrible designs keep being perpetuated. They mistake over saturation of a bad design for market desirability. 

The deciders about our built environment are often people just like this who could care less if they're selling houses, fish, hot tubs, or urinal cakes. It's just a commodity to many of the people that buy properties to develop them, so I like to meet these people and educate them. If we want to win over the hearts of the masses, then why are we mostly designing for the wealthy few? We must bring good design to the regular home owner and we'll expand our profession and raise our worth. If we can get builders to start competing with quality, then we'll become valuable quickly. Right now competing with quantity isn't going to work, so I've already seen home builders in my area changing course. These guys found me because I design spec houses and they sell well. There is no other way to test your worth at market, so embrace the horrible spec builders and change them. This is a great opportunity for us to insert ourselves into this sector and start raising the design bar from the bottom up. Give them a minimal fee for the minimal amount of work and you open the door to a huge wealth of opportunities you could have never participated in before. The best part of this type of work is the extremely low bar of expectations. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------

Very well said Eric. I've enjoyed your other postings as well.

We have been using the comparison of architectural fees to realtors fees stating that we can provide a limited service type of home design that is less than the realtor's fee that is built into purchasing a home and clients seem to appreciate and understand the comparison.

-------------------------------------------
Debra Rucker Coleman, AIA
Architect
Sun Plans Inc.
Mobile, AL

-------------------------------------------






Show Original Message -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-29-2011 22:18
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: Low Res

Most of us are clinging to middle class status, yet we design buildings and spaces that are well beyond our personal budgets. I think most of us would easily say that we couldn't afford our own fees if we were to hire us to renovate our home. The Low end Residential market is by far the most bountiful resource for work. People can't sell houses, but life moves on. People need more space for babies, new spouses, the recent college grad. Residential Designers are not equipped to handle difficult structural/ spacial problems and often create simplistic dysfunctional solutions for complicated renovation projects. There is a real need for Architects in this area and the sole practitioner is a perfect fit. 

When we focus our fee structures, list of services, and business models on the wealthy clients, then we economically isolate ourselves to a small market of wonderfully expensive projects. At the end of the day, Rolex does pretty good, but Walmart does better by selling to the masses. We have conditioned ourselves to think more documents are necessary for our own protection, yet providing more documents for a lawyer to sift through never helped anyone. We need to make our services available to middle class clients if we want our profession to make a real impact on society. Let's face it, the majority of Americans live in terrible houses and they fall in love with this garbage, so this is what they expect from buildings. It all starts with the home. I've explained in detail before how I've reduced my services to a good idea and a set of drawings for a permit for the pathetically small projects and have managed to make better money per hour than I do on commercial work. It's the concept of charging a minimum set up fee for small bare bones projects vs bundling many services for a discount for large swanky projects. The small projects are always affordable and available in quantity. Renovation clients are the people banks give $100K loans to all day long. This is unaccounted for in the "housing starts" stats, but it's out there, everywhere. Don't be afraid of designing in your neighborhood. All of us should be as a community service effort.

Every day I encounter people in the housing industry that live in a world without Architects. I have a spec house renovator client that I'm "dating" right now that is a classic example of what's wrong with the standard housing development process in this country. Now I'm a believer in a true free market, but it's the spirit of amateurism that made our country great that allows the unqualified to make the decisions about what our built environment looks like. Now we have a lawyer and an accountant that are new to the game and they think they have it all figured out. Neither looks at beauty in terms of physical form, but rather in which house has sold the most units. These guys are always attracted to the worst new construction spec houses, so they want to renovate old houses in that "style". They worry about building a house that won't sell, so they look at the houses they find the most in the MLS listings. When they see a certain house sell many times, they see success and that's beautiful to them. This what I call chasing your tail. I quickly pointed out that these houses are always selling $100k less than my unique spec houses because they are mass produced. No one wants to live in the same house as their neighbor, we just give them little choice. This is also how terrible designs keep being perpetuated. They mistake over saturation of a bad design for market desirability. 

The deciders about our built environment are often people just like this who could care less if they're selling houses, fish, hot tubs, or urinal cakes. It's just a commodity to many of the people that buy properties to develop them, so I like to meet these people and educate them. If we want to win over the hearts of the masses, then why are we mostly designing for the wealthy few? We must bring good design to the regular home owner and we'll expand our profession and raise our worth. If we can get builders to start competing with quality, then we'll become valuable quickly. Right now competing with quantity isn't going to work, so I've already seen home builders in my area changing course. These guys found me because I design spec houses and they sell well. There is no other way to test your worth at market, so embrace the horrible spec builders and change them. This is a great opportunity for us to insert ourselves into this sector and start raising the design bar from the bottom up. Give them a minimal fee for the minimal amount of work and you open the door to a huge wealth of opportunities you could have never participated in before. The best part of this type of work is the extremely low bar of expectations. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

-------------------------------------------
Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
-------------------------------------------