Prepare as much as you can before ordering house plans
Be sure to have all your ducks in a row before purchasing plans, including getting answers to any questions or concerns you may have. I often come into the office and see that folks have purchased plans online in the evening. While this of course makes me happy, it’s always a shock when I discover that the buyer has never contacted us with any questions, either by email or phone.
In the Contact Us section of our site, I let visitors know that they “can’t wear me out“ with questions. I remind them what a big decision they’re making – not only to spend a couple of thousand dollars on house plans, but to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building a new home. So please, do your homework before buying plans. You’ll never regret the effort, but you might very well regret not making it.
We invite visitors to call us for a free consultation on every page of our website. And they can read all about the basic process of buying house plans by visiting the FAQs https://www.architecturalhouseplans.com/faqs/ and Important Info https://www.architecturalhouseplans.com/important-info sections of our site. These two sections provide detailed and complete answers to 28 common questions, only 5 of which are specific to our business.
But when you have questions about a specific house, be sure to get answers – via phone or email – before purchasing the plans.
If you’re thinking about making modifications to the floor plans, contact us or a builder to determine if the changes will be easy or difficult. And while you’re at it, ask if there’s a better way to achieve the same ends by different means.
Seriously, ask as many questions as you feel are necessary for you to feel comfortable about being able to build the house after receiving the plans. And please forget about sounding naïve, or feeling embarrassed. You’re the customer! And you have every right to ask anything you like.
Unfortunately, while large “stock” plan sites invite you to call, the person answering is a sales person who knows little about anything except taking your order, and helping you decide what package to buy. The problem for them is that they don’t actually have copies of the plans they sell. In the stock plan business model, the plan company processes the order, and then contacts the designer to fulfill it. This insures that the designer gets his or her commission after every sale.
Our site is intentionally much smaller, and our relationship with the architects and designers is based solely on trust… for both parties. They have to trust us to inform them whenever we sell one of their designs; and we have to trust them not to sell directly to our visitors, who often Google the designers and contact them directly.
And the reason for this model is simple: for us to provide a high level of customer service, we need to be able to open the plans to provide accurate answers. We also need to know the plans inside and out, and be comfortable with contacting the architect when we can’t answer a question – which, after 20 years, is quite rare, I’m proud to say.