Square foot differences

[goalie13456]

Hello,
My client insists that he pays by the square footage. Do you charge for just the first floor space? The basement is a different shape and took the same amount of work. Is it a reduced price per sq. foot for basement areas? How do you differentiate the range of price per square foot based on the floor?
Thanks!!

[perryh]

I charge by the s.f. and it should include, 1st and 2nd and third floors of the house, garage, decks, covered and not covered patios and stairwells. Just include everything you draw into that price. Your client shouldn't be the one insisting, you should be. Extra charges include structural Engineering, soils reports, landscape plans, Civil engineering (roads, sidewalks), plan printing. Always get it in writing #1.

[goalie13456]

Thanks Perry. As helpful as ever. I am designing a 7,500 sq foot home right outside of Phoenix (first floor and basement). Do you have any idea when reasonable price per square footage range for that area would be? I need to design and put these designs into a 7 page construction document (1 page of details). I contacted some local architects asking what their pricing is and they never got back to me.
Thanks!

[perryh]

Heck, I don't even know what prices are in my area, The people I have been working with are customers I've had for 25 to 30 years, every couple of years I tell them what I'm charging now, and they spit, and say ok. My price is really about what the building departments are doing now and how much detail they want. an average 1000 s,f, room addition is about 20 to 25 pages now, here in Southern California. A custom home will be higher than that. I also have a couple of engineer's I have worked with for 30 years, and it flows like butter, I do all the structural also. You might look for an Engineer, they might want to work with you better.

[goalie13456]

20-25 pages? That's crazy. In Phoenix all they need is a base 6 page document! If you don't mind sharing, what is you're median sq foot charge for a custom house? Thanks so much for your help.

[kenoeightspot]

My average project is 25 pages. The information is not just for the building department but for the home owner. The more complicated the project the more pages involves to communicate the the design
intent to the contractor. These pages become a contract between the owner and the contractor.

[lbuttery]

most of our permit sets were for the permit dept, not the builder

the homeowmer could care less about the 2D drawings
but they loved the 3D images

Lew

[goalie13456]

Is $3 sq/ft unreasonable to charge? I do have to start from scratch and its a fairly large house. I just don't want to drive the client away.

[kenoeightspot]

Seven sheets for $22,500 sound good to me. Structural not included. Charge whatever feels right for you.

[dshall]

I know of a woman who was charging 6.00/sf for custom homes, and this was about 20 years ago. She hired me to do the drafting work. So 3.00/sf sounds like a bargain compared to what she charged many years ago. Of course she was very good and had a very good reputation.

[Alaskan Son]

It really depends a lot on how good of a designer you are I think. Without knowing all the little details, I imagine I would charge in the neighborhood of $2 per sq. ft. as a base price for what you've described. And I always charge twice for the stairwell. Stairwells take at least twice as much time as normal square footage both to design and to build. Just my 2 cents.

[goalie13456]

Thank you everyone. Great Info

[designersink]

In my experience, designers, especially ones who are not established, tend to worry more about their design fees being too high than the clients do. New designers tend to worry that charging $3000 to $5000 for a house that you worked 60 hours on would be asking too much. Then we see the quotes from the general contractors, plumbers, electricians, framers, etc to build the project who are charging more than that for fewer hours of work. A well designed home, with accurate construction documents, will save the client more in reduced change orders, wasted materials, etc. than we normally charge for our fees.

My suggestion, when determining your fees, is to not lessen the importance of your role as the designer for the overall project. The designer's role is critically important, and the fees should reflect that. If a client doesn't understand the importance of your role and how we can save them money in the long run, then spend a little bit of time in your first consultation explaining that importance.

Don't sell yourself (and the importance of your work) short when determining your fees.

[Allen Brown]

Many Designers in my area charge 45-55 cents/finished sq.ft. I charge $1/square foot of finished living space and give a 20% discount if we are building the home as well.

My plans are very detailed and at that fee I make a very respectable hourly rate.

[Milo]

Wow - talk about a moving target. Charging by the SF has always made zero sense to me. There are so many variables in any given project - site constraints, Planning / Zoning / Bldg Code issues, the client (often the biggest wild-card). I've had kitchen projects (250SF) take 3 times as long as a 900 SF bed / bath addition - great, charge by the SF and earn $10/HR on one and $30+ on another. That's not because I don't know what I'm doing either. We're offering a professional service here, not piece work. I've been charging by the hour for design resolution and by the sheet for construction documents for 25+ years - I don't lose money when a client wants to look at alternatives and needs 6 revisions to a preliminary design. Resolving cabinetry / appliance clearances, specifying HVAC systems, investigating alternative building shell systems - these are not $/SF processes. Even at this rate schedule, I can bang out that 2 bed / 1 bath project at a pretty 'low' cost - but the value added over a $/sf designer / draftsman is easily appreciated by the owner when the project gets built out without anyone looking at the plans and wondering what has to happen.