Cookie Cutter, Architect, Engineer Questions

[Joseph Morales]

I purchased a house in 2008. I spent 3 years renovating it by myself. I had it rented out for the past 7 years give or take. I am in the process of selling right now. I am not an expert in the Real Estate game. However, with all that being stated, I've gone through enough of the process to look to become a serious investor. Which is my plan.

Here are my questions:  Why are architect fees so high? Is it like an insurance thing? If they mess up can they be sued for damages?

Is there a standard that can be used in any situation? For instance: If I pay an architect or engineer to design a room addition for a house. Can I take those same plans to my 2nd? 3rd? and so on? If not, Why?

[Nik Moushon]

Quote from @Joseph Morales:

I purchased a house in 2008. I spent 3 years renovating it by myself. I had it rented out for the past 7 years give or take. I am in the process of selling right now. I am not an expert in the Real Estate game. However, with all that being stated, I've gone through enough of the process to look to become a serious investor. Which is my plan.

Here are my questions:  Why are architect fees so high? Is it like an insurance thing? If they mess up can they be sued for damages?

Is there a standard that can be used in any situation? For instance: If I pay an architect or engineer to design a room addition for a house. Can I take those same plans to my 2nd? 3rd? and so on? If not, Why?

 Architect fees are based on a lot of different things. This would be a very long, and boring, post if I tried to explain everything as to why our fees seem high. A couple of the big cost items are insurance, computers & software (one software seat can be $5k+/yr or more), employee pay and benefits, mortgage for office building, license fees etc.

Some items that people don't realize is included in our fees (most of the time) is our consultants such as structural engineer, MEP engineers, civil, landscape architect, etc. Now who is included varies based on the job and contract but a lot of time those are included in our fee. Where as most drafters don't include that. So when you get his low number for drafting you will get a surprise bill later for additional costs for those consultants. Another thing that most people don't realize is that we, typically, are involved through the construction phase of a project. We answer questions from the contractor and find solutions to issues in the field. Most drafters, that I'm aware of, wont do that. Once the project leaves their desk, they are done with it. So unless an owner is completely competent with their knowledge of construction and how to deal with contractors, this is an often over looked and under valued service we provide. I can tell you plenty of horror stories of projects going off the rails because one thing or another and that it wouldn't have happened if an architect was involved in the construction phase.  

Now, most people don't get past the complexity of a 2,000 sf single family house. So paying for the full services of an architecture firm is hard to justify. Especially when you are looking at it from the typical investor who just wants something cheap and easy. Smaller projects are often hard to turn a profit on for architects as well, especially once you get to a business size of more than 1 or 2 people. You really are paying for quality at that point and not an investment service. 

To answer your specific question on drawings, typically, you (the owner) does not own the copyright of the drawings themselves. The architect does. You are paying for our service to provide you documents to build that building once on a specific site. Once that once building is built you can not take the drawings to another site and build another. Similar to an artist holding copyright to a painting. You can buy the painting and take it to your house but you can go make copies of it and re-sell them. Now you can negotiate with the architect or drafter to either buy the copyright from them or be allowed to build a certain amount of them. This will obvious cost you more. Again, similar to paying an artist getting paid a royalty fee every time their art is sold as a copy.