In June 2012 been contacted by an architect, living in Dominican Republic, but I believe he was a native english speaker, possibly American, in vacation.
Been impressed by my works, he offered a collaboration, to advertise my services for FREE on his future website caribbeanhomeandhouse.com (site closed 2023), a directory of architects aimed for entire Caribbean region, in exchange of some of my drawings.
That times I was playing in AutoCAD with layouts and publishing concept floor plans on website and 3D models, for artistic / hobby. I never mentioned on website that I am architect or that I offer architectural design services. I was aware that for building permit and construction, “architectural construction drawings” are necessary, and I had NO experience about this.
I was using live chat software for 5 months, time in which several people asked for floor plans, I helped them for FREE to practice playing with layouts, willing to charge money for 3D design, but my customers were not needing 3D design. One time I asked $20 for a floor plan designed in 1 hour. All them were tankful for floor plan and said that have no money to pay me.
The american architect told me that my prices are wrong and showed me that www.houseplans.com does sell drawings for hundred to thousand dollars, he personally is charging $5000-10000 per house project, suggesting me to use a reference price of 40$ per hour, this left me in confusion since the floor plans I was drawing were not taking more than 1-2 hours.
I told him my experience with customers refusing to pay even $20, so how I could expect someone to pay thousands dollars?
He asked me how old I am, I answered 23 years old (at this age is obvious that I cannot be a (licensed) architect), but he kept maintaining the offer of promoting my services, so I accepted the offer.
HE PUT ME ON WRONG TRACK, making me to think that my age and experience in “concept plans” is sufficient to promote myself as “architecture services” and can charge large sums of money. I became worried that people could steal my concept plans and use in construction, especially when people said “thank you, useful” after giving them sketches.
He gave me several suggestions, which turned useless:
- Use PayPal for safety reasons – I always asked customers to pay via PayPal and this made me to lose customers, most customers were in third-world countries where PayPal is unavailable or barely used. I went to a bank and opened a bank account to have more ways of payment.
- Watermark drawings to prevent usage – my name and website URL was already added on every image, but did not helped convincing people to pay for drawings without watermark.
- Take payment 50% before, 50% after – almost what I was already doing: Do the first sketch, show to the customer a screenshot to show that I did some work, and ask for payment to complete drawing and sell in PDF format ready for printing. But people were saying Thanks! right after I sent preview screenshot of first sketch and run away before I could ask for money. These people were not even interested in PDF, 3D model or any detailed drawings!
- Hope he did not wanted to get 50% of money before the screenshot, because is unlikely for someone to pay me before being sure that I am designer (and not collect designs from Google images).
- He forgot to tell me what I need to provide for the price of thousands $ he suggested me to charge?
He was replying in 5-10 min in 90% of cases, despite of saying that is BUSY, but he was giving random replies and random advices instead of answering my questions.
I asked about 3 or 4 times “Is possible to get building permit by printing THIS image https://www.teoalida.com/design/House-for-extended-family-floorplan.png ?” he never answered despite should not take more than several seconds to say YES or NO.
Later, 2 people told me that can’t pay because are students, next time I asked if they are builders of students and by this way. Next months been contacted by over 10 people, ALL STUDENTS except 2 people who were looking to build and I made the mistake to treat them like the students majority, I served them free without realizing that they are ready to pay, one of them even asked me “how much do you charge” and I didn’t realized that “charge” means taking money!
I emailed the chatlogs to architect to show that my “customers” were actually STUDENTS WITHOUT MONEY and asked him what to do with them. I also asked what is going on with our collaboration, he said that next month, his website will be ready.
Next month, I emailed him again about our collaboration, also asked how to calculate price for apartment projects because I have been contacted by a developer of 160-unit tower block in Malaysia. Architect said that put my collaboration offer under review, because do not want to promote my services of someone who “lost many customers” (in sense that most people did not paid me, this because were students, not because were unhappy about my services, nobody complained), and because I asked him too many questions and he never offer free advices.
I emailed him a screenshot of chatlog showing a customer paying me $200$ after an initial payment of $100$, to prove that I also have PAYING customers, not just students and failures. I asked him to give me a project to do, to see whenever I can offer quality services… he never replied anymore.
The Caribbean architect omitted a thing: not every person who visit my website is interested in my services, I cannot force people paying for something they do not need!
Probably he had an office and been visited by customers who are actually interested in his services, but in online world things are different: people are browsing internet for free ideas and ready-made plans, they are NOT interested in anyone’s services. I have this website with a chat widget that greet every visitor browsing at least # minutes, some people answer chat accidentally and ask “Do you HAVE a floor plan X by Y meters with Z bedrooms” (note difference between “Do you HAVE” and “Can you DESIGN”). Sometimes I said that I can draw a sketch in 30 minutes, they refused the FREE offer and left website. One even replied “Thanks anyway, I found a suitable plan on your website“. These people are not “lost customers“, they are NOT customers at all.
But the SAD part is that some people are building a house, they have already a preferred architect / designer and they contact me for a concept floor plan to go to their architect and pay (only) him for detailed construction drawings. This is NOT fair, they should pay me too for idea.
How idiot was the Caribbean architect to blame the quality of my services due to people looking for ideas not even interested in my services?
Filipino architect that put me on correct track
Later, I made another friend, a Filipino architect living in Singapore, and I thank him for telling me FEW IMPORTANT DETAILS that the American-Caribbean idiot refused to answer and forgot to tell me.
Filipino architect confirmed what I believed before meeting the idiot: the floor plans and 3D models I was making are NOT ENOUGH for getting building permit. Permit require fully-dimensioned floor plans, elevations, sections, structural details, plumbing and electrical drawing, all these takes few weeks of work, and he charge a minimum of $1000 for them (to date, nobody ever asked me for so many drawings, most likely the lack of samples of detailed drawings on website made people to realize that I am not architect, whenever anyone was looking for an architect, he would not have contacted me at all).
Philippnes archirect said that I CAN charge money for my 1-hour sketches, but price accordingly, don’t ask thousand dollars for concept plans as Caribbean idiot said.
I found this website www.homeplans.com.my selling luxury house plans starting at ONLY 199 RM = 65 USD, offering a preview of PDF so you can see exactly what do you get by buying.
I started learning how to make detailed architectural construction drawings to be able to join competition with architects, and once I published on website samples of detailed drawings beside the simple concept plans, more customers paid me for architectural services.
However, paying customers remains a rare sight. 90% of people who contact me want just a free sketch and run away. And some of the paying ones ask so many revisions that I regret taking their projects.
In conclusion: the american architect pushed me into an architecture career that I do not really enjoy.
