Estate agent advice appreciated RE: Floorplans

[designLAB]

Hi,
I am seeking advice from those working in the Estate/lettings Agency industry.
Are the drawing of floor plans, (that accompany your sales literature), generally done "in-house" by the agent, or do you outsource this to an outside compnay? For instance, i have seen websites on the internet which offer a floor plan drawing service to estate agents. The estate agent will fax a rough hand drawn sketch with measurements, the drawing company then redraws the agents sketch on CAD software and then returns it in a digital file of their choice ready for your sales literature. I am wondering, how many of you guys actually use a service like this ? (is it the norm?) or is it something you do yourselves using software such as metropix?

I would greatly appreciate any advice you guys can offer, thanks.

Regards,

Daniel

[IFA]

For the purpose of estate agents details you really don't need anything too complex, it certainly doesn't need to be precisely to scale or highly detailed, so paying a company to produce beatifully created and meticulously detailed drawings is probably unnecessary unless you are dealing with high value property where clients expect superior service.

The results are likely to be printed fairly small within your property brochure, so even including things such as bathroom fittings and kitchen units is sometimes over detailed and looks confusing.

For us, a simple line drawing showing walls, doors, windows, stairs and room names is enough to give prosepctive buyers a sense of property design and layout which is all that's necessary to encourage them to view (or not as the case may be).

Some EPC providers are now offering to produce floorplans when they visit the property which is fair enough so long as the cost isn't too high, but they are not too difficult to produce in house and at least you will know that they are accurate (hopefully) if you do them yourself.

Just remember to put a disclaimer on your details saying floor plans are for guidance only, not to scale etc....

[googler]

Hiring an outside agency to input details into software and send a digi file back is off the agenda in the current climate. Makes far more sense to buy the software in-house for a one-off fee, and let it pay for itself after X number of plans.

Analogy: I used to pay £10 or so for a haircut. Then I bought a pro-quality clipper set for £14.99 and it paid for itself in two cuts.

Anything that involves tagging on a paid-for service such as this to estate agency seems to be disappearing, as far as I can see. The costs have to be passed on to the client (how else will it be paid for?), and the clients are less willing to pay.

Those who were offering virtual tours, floorplans, high-mast photography, etc etc - they all seem to be very quiet now, whereas in 2006/7 they were all over the place.

[designLAB]

Hi Guys,
Thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply and your advice. Basically i work as an architectural technician and like many others in this current climate am just trying to use my skills to bring in some extra pennies, with hours having been cut etc. I saw some sites on the internet offering this kind of service so just thought i'd look more into it - certainly makes sense what you said googler RE: 2006/7 compared to now though. I guess the search continues ;-) Thanks once again.

[sablade]

Originally Posted by googler

Makes far more sense to buy the software in-house for a one-off fee, and let it pay for itself after X number of plans.

what floorplan software do you use please?

[googler]

Ddin't say I used any.

[HomeStandards]

I still can't understand why some estat agents do not use floor plans of their details. Surely these agents m,ust be loosing some sales due to vendors going to agents that offer the floor plans. It isnt like it costs the agents anything, as payments is taken direct from the vendor.... ???

Sutton Surrey and surrounding areas... Home Standards Ltd -