What To Look For When Purchasing Home Plans Online
Being an educated consumer is the most power that you can give yourself when purchasing architectural home plans online. So, Amy wanted to review what you should look for when purchasing house plans.
Often, people contact Amy and ask if she can draw up plans from a screenshot they took from an online company. Here is why she doesn’t do it:
- The design would never work. The room dimensions are off, so the plan might say a total square footage with all the bells and whistles, but it always comes out to a larger home. And remember: square footage = dollar signs.
- Cost-Inefficiency. Custom plans will cost a lot more than online plans, so we tell them to buy the Abrigo Home plan they like and call it a day. We can customize our plans easily and cost-efficiently since they’re already drawn in our system. You might as well be a fully custom client if you want us to alter someone else’s plans.
- Boring! We still need to draw the entire house in my CAD program. So, if all Amy’s doing is drawing someone else’s design into CAD, she’s just a draftsperson. Her talent lies in being creative; the rest is technical.
- Builder Dislike Them. Most builders hate those plans because they are incomplete, so they spend a ton of time figuring out how to make them work. Anything up for interpretation will likely not end well. This flexible but extremely precise industry has many options, so the right and left turns can turn into going around in circles.
When you are looking for house plans online, make sure that you can:
A. Customize the plan
B. Understand square footage and how much you need/want for your project.
C. Understand the material specs required for your ‘To-Do list’ after purchasing before you can hire, get permitted, and start building.
And, if you have any questions about how to use your plans or if you’re a builder, how to start building off of them, feel free to contact us with questions at [email protected]!