Ah - sorry about that! I know people who are involved in tech and consulting in the built environment. According to them, the minutiae is surprisingly similar to architecture. Also, expect to work 50 hours a week. :(

SC, if you are looking to transition into tech or consulting, the big question is: what skills and value-add can you offer that translates over to what they do? Are you just looking to do architecture in an organization that is not a traditional architecture firm? That's one thing. But if you are looking at actually being a consultant for Deloitte or PwC or JLL or something like that, then you need to bring something to the table other than just "architect."

Yes, this is also what I'm getting at--is bridging this gap into consulting simply a matter of spinning the experiences I already have running $200M construction projects for large NYC developers (from the Architectural side) into a very persuasive pitch, or should I be pursuing some kind of certificate program in the evenings? If I worked in consulting I would most certainly not be doing architecture, but presumably advisory on any sort of business or investment decision a government, large institutional RE investor was looking to undertake in areas related to urban redevelopment, housing, construction or building science.

I think in my initial post I actually made the distinction between "doing architecture for a tech company, i.e. corporate campus planning, retail concepts, service and operations centers" and "Consulting/product management". I'm open to either, sort of curious about which path might be easier and more fruitful.

Let me flip that back on you: what do you want to DO?

At $200 k a year you can't pay for people to do that and not live like you make $125k a year. Also you'll typically 'live to work'.  If that's your choice that's fine. It's not for me though. 

I only do about 80 -100 hours of overtime a year.  

BulgarBlogger  - If I may ask, what else are you doing besides working at your firm? No problem if you want to keep that private.  I'm just curious.  

Luxury residential in nyc

How do you squeeze that in without jeopardizing your day job? And how do you field calls during normal business hours?

Just honest with my clients. I communicate with my consultants when I can and work with someone to help me produce.

As long as your clients and employer are OK with it I say good for you BulgarBlogger!

In my early career I did moonlighting -  I didn't like how much it ate into my personal life.  

Screw this idea if “employer is okay with it” lol. It’s no one’s business what I do outside of work on my free time. Period.

I'd have to agree.  I just had a mutually respectful relationship with the firms I worked for when I was moonlighting.  Heck - my past firms would send clients my way for projects that they weren't interested in (single family residential).  

As long as you're not using any of your employers implements of service and aren't competing with them they can't do much about it. If you are then they can be held liable for your work and , well that's not good. Some really 'nasty' firms will have a no moonlighting and noncompete clause in their staff contracts.

Yep, but not only am I a respected valuable member of my firm, I never compete and don't use my firm's time and resources. No need for anyone to know what I do on my own time.

Very true in that situation.

Nice! This is pretty much the answer I was looking for. As you touched upon, in other industries, paying mid level professionals 200K is not a big deal. Its just sort of expected. Is your day to day still very architectural, or have you bracnhed out into project finance+accounting, procurement, labor relations, etc? What project types

It really depends on the day... I am focused on publicly funded work that is delivered either as CM at Risk (CM/GC) or some form of design-build... so I end up participating in the pursuit phase (business development). Once we land one, I end up managing the design process leading to a GMP and the start of construction. I end up handing the job off day to day to the on-site staff, but stay involved to answer questions and be a resource to the field team. It also allows me to stay in contact with the owner and A/E team to continue building that relationship for future jobs! We are beginning to see more public/private partnerships (P3) and other creative ways to finance major capital projects. So, in terms of finance and accounting... it is two fold... understanding how projects are funded at a macro level and then internally, setting up projects for financial success. I work very closely with our estimating department on that internal step!

Sorry. the second half of my first reply was cut off.... Is your firm a boutique operation or a multi-billion dollar juggernaut? Was making the transition a huge effort where you had to upskill and network furiously, or did you simply show up the interview and they hired you for the skills you already had? How are the hours? Do you work mostly in a nice office or a smelly construction trailer? Get a lot of frantic 7am calls when the concrete sub puts the wrong rebar in the formwork before the pour, or is it pretty contained hours? Are you a superstar executive within the firm, or simply one of a few mid-level technical specialists?

Lots of questions! I started at a smaller local GC that was making the transition from predominantly hard bid public works to the more integrated CM/GC and design-build. For them, transitioning from construction as a product (low price) to a service (being selected partially on the basis of value add during preconstruction) I was a natural fit. I stayed there for a few years and then moved to a larger (by volume) general contractor with more opportunities. I was initially hired because I worked with that smaller GC doing CA... so we knew we could communicate and they liked my attitude on site. The work hours aren't bad... less than what I was doing in traditional architecture. We start earlier in the day and end earlier. I consider myself to be between a superstar and mid-level... While we are very large corporately, I feel like our office functioned like a well funded start-up when I joined 7 years ago. All that to say, there was room for upward growth within the corporate structure.

I'm 46 and make right 'around' $100k. I've also in a lower cost of living area that is less urban.

Smaarch - that can be interpreted a few different ways, did the friend express any specific way the firm saw that? (IE no overtime? Manage your own hours? Flexibility on project requirements? Just curious...)

As simple as I stated it - in a law firm You are responsible for bringing in 2000 hours of billable a year - then you get your 2 week vacation and maybe bonus. The math is super simple

Math is simple but factor in all the overhead has to occur outside those 2000 hours. Training, filing, etc. - which routinely means 10-20 extra hours a week (another 500-1000 hours). And there is overhead time. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

Correct Gregory. 

 I have several lawyer friends. They are required to have so many billable hours each year. Those hours are when they directly work on the case or meet with the client. Everything else is overhead and isn't counted. Each of my lawyer friends works at least 50 hours a week.

I was talking to a lawyer friend and they mentioned that before they go to the bathroom to "drop some friends off at the pool", they like to think of a really hard question they are working on just so they can bill the time to a project when they're on the toilet. The way that their firm structure was set up was pretty poor and if they did not meet their 2000 billable hours threshold they were docked their bonus. Which was still more then I make in a year but hey....

Ignoring the difference between lawyers and architects for a moment (though I think comparing the two is silly), the main difference is that most lawyers (not all...) bill their clients hourly. Most architects (again, not all...) bill their clients in lump sums based on either the overall scope of work, or by phase of design. On a fixed fee schedule, the faster or less hours you take to complete the task, the more money you make. I have a theory that I have not researched, but… I blame the AIA for the low wages of architects. I think 100 + years ago, the AIA wanted to shift the architecture profession away from the master builder and more towards a white-collar profession and really made an effort to divide those that design from those that build. If more people were willing to pay architects hourly, then I think the comparison to modern day law firms is a good one. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, broadly speaking.

who are you asking please

Strange Cascades

Im always shocked how much space planners make. They are basically playing Tetris with desks.

rare/ less common skill set could be being by far the one with most expertise in your company/ field OR you have 2-3 disparate skills that are usually not contained in one person. anyways feel free to DM me. I am familiar with probs 3/4 of the positions on your list and have considering a lot of them at one pt in my career.

the classic combo is the super technical person who is also very good at being persuasive with clients/ great communicator. Clients love having the capacity to have a single point of contact who understands all of their concerns.

Yes know of a few people that moved onto the "dark side" but I feel the pressure there can be even more than architecture, especially when the $ is much better.

Unless your are an established architect, $135k fee for a 3000 SF house would be difficult. 

I'd like to know more about the architects that make fees like that. Unless it's a boutique firm in a major metro area with a wealthy client you're not going to be making that much on such a small residential project. Assuming 10% arch fee, Depending on your area that would be around a $1.7 million, 3,000 sf home.

For a highly talented, sought-after architect, I can see fees like that being possible. I'm only marginally talented and not an architect, living in a rural area, and I am $60K-$90K for a 3,000 sq.ft. house. For a current 3200sf new home and 3-car garage I'm around $100K, but it's quite detailed and I'm also doing interior design and cabinet detailing.

Wood Guy - I assume you're also carrying consultants within that 100k too, right?

Josh - I would also assume that WG's fees include doing CD's and CA. Professional Student is saying to charge $135k just for design fees. CD's would add another $35k. 

I'm not sure where Professional Student is getting these numbers from.

That's $170k in just architectural fees on a 3,000 sf house.  :o

I would love that to just design. That would be a damn good house after a year of design.

$13-16k for all including engineering (no interior design or cabinet design) and people think I'm super expensive. I need that space planner job.

we were billing one client over 20k per month in design fees for their custom cottage. Sure, it cost north of 10 million communist loonies, but the client paid for every hour spent in the 5+ years it took to finish. Construction is just wrapping up on this one.

Non -

Impressive.  A client with a lot of money who wants to spend it! 

How many of your single family residential clients are like that?

How many single family residential projects do you work on in a year?

^2 in the 10mil range. Currently balls deep in low-rise (6 unit) high-end vacation condo projects where units are expected to sell for 2-4mil each. Got 5 of those on the board right now. Other res projects are more modest 500k to 2mil. Also worth noting that my office does not do residential... Only 2 of us here (me and the firm president) touch this space.

I hear 'ya Non.  

Single family residential is difficult to make a profit on unless it's in the $5 million range. When I've done single family homes in the past they've been a 'favor' to clients. We typically didn't make any money on them. 

At my current firm we don't do any single or multi family housing. Not enough fee and too much liability.

That's like $4 right?

Chad, who said we're making a profit on those 20k monthly invoices?

Let's stop calling sfr and call it what it is, the third vacation home in a highly sought after resort community. We do exclusively this type of project and while I personally am not in the 200k point, my boss and only other member of the firm do get that and more. In the last 6 years we completed 3 houses over 6000 sq ft and 5-8 mil construction cost, and another 5 or 6 gut to the studs remodels in the 3-5 mil range. Can't complain not getting 200k because the perks of living here are great, I don't see more than 10 people a day, no traffic riddled commute, and all the outdoors you can need, great summer weather and plenty of snow in winter.

Josh, no consultants are under me. There is a structural engineer involved but he bills our client directly, and I did a majority of the structural engineering. There is also a mechanical engineer, landscape architect and civil engineer as well, all billing the client directly. This project started a few years ago and I didn't have it in my contract that I could increase my billing rate annually, so I'm charging 66% of my current rate. Over 750 hours of design, from schematics through CDs and also including at least a couple hundred hours for interior design and cabinet detailing. They are unusual clients who I've designed for in the past.

Like most of my projects, this one is a primary residence "forever home." I do have one now that's a vacation home, around $1.8M construction, and I usually have one in the works, but it's maybe 10-15% of my projects. None are in resort areas, but people do like the coast of Maine where most of my projects are.

I mean, Maine is awesome.

Not only are some firms making 135K in 3000 SF residential, some are making much more. The firms that I see billing at these rates are 2 fold - Interiors for ultra-wealthy clients and Firms that do mainly "neo-classical" or "traditional aesthetics" that typically cater to more of a "conservative" client base willing to pay high design fees. These high fees are exclusive of location even though location definitely plays a part.

Also, if you go on reddit, with a grain of salt, you will see lots of architects and designers billing at these rates higher, but also MUCH lower. 

Ironically, if you want to see true architect fees, go on reddit and see people post "is this a fair architect fee" - you will see the diverse array of fees based on project location, sf, and residential types. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebuilding/search/?q=architect+fee&type=link&cId=ff03d835-9157-4d13-a9a8-7817dc2aac2e&iId=ccbf10ac-b996-49b6-bc7b-46bd2fa84e2d

Chad - I am including Consultants, CD and CA in those fees. The 35K extra is if you need to HIRE another person to help with CD if you are doing 2 projects at once.

Even with consultant fees that $135K fee for a 3,000 sf home with a construction cost of $2 million is a bit high. That's about 7% of construction cost. Most single family projects are in the 5-6%. I assumed you must be basing your numbers on some very wealthy clients and boutique firms. 

 Also - you can't charge the client more because you're understaffed. I mean you can try but good luck.  

Finally - I'm not going to use Redit to see true architectural fees.  I looked at that link and most of it is BS.  

Don't take this personally, but 5%-6% of construction fee for single family residential (if including consultants and CD+CA) is why architects will never get out of the under-paid and over-worked loop-hole. 

 Any client wanting a custom design single family residential home from an architect, or a client wanting a custom interior renovation from an ID or architect, already signifies that the client has the resources. They are not your average middle-class American. Your average, actually not average, the majority of Americans work hourly-rate jobs (55% to be exact). These are wealthy clients. Elon Musk-Wealthy? No. Wanting-a-custom-designed-house- in the wealthiest country in the world - wealthy? Yes. 

If your client wants to go to a cheaper architect or ID because your fees are too high, that's their choice. I do understand at the outset that you might have slightly lower fees, but if you're still charging 5%-6% as your rate with many years of custom single family residential experience, you're ripping yourself off. Even spec builders are making more with boiler-plate floor plans and shitty details, if they even have details. 

My old practice was charging 7% on low end - and 9% fees on high end. Why? The firm was in demand for "modern" custom residential. The clients liked our aesthetic. Our work was published on Archdaily. I don't know what you consider "boutique" in this day and age, but if you are an architect designing a custom single family residential, regardless of aesthetics, and you have a healthy construction document set with custom details and/or quality materials, that kind of effort must be fairly compensated and 5% at 1 million or even 2 million aint it. 

5% fee for a 1 million dollar residential project is literal a rip-off, even if it's in a rural area. That means your services for designing, drawing, coordinating, and administrating a 1 million dollar house is roughly 30,000 dollars: after taxes, after possible payroll for staff or contract help, after consultant fees. I don't care if the project is in Kansas City or New York City, that's a rip-off and why architects will keep getting ripped off if we think these rates are fine. 

 Also, the reddit link is a great resource because these are the actual clients stating what they paid vs what architects billed. But to each their own, and yes, definitely with a grain of salt.

Professional Student -

Kind of. 

Clients aren't willing to pay the required minimum fee of 15% to make the job profitable for an architect. This is regardless of the amount of 'resources' they have.  

On a related note: % of construction fee structure only works on jobs over $5 million in construction cost. Anything lower than that and you need to find a different metric to help determine your fee.

That's why most architects don't do custom single family homes unless they are for the super wealthy.  You'll see some professionals here like Wood Guy who will do custom single family homes with lower budgets and still is profitable.  I believe WG is a design build outfit though.   

One last question.  How long have your been practicing in the  single family residential market?  What are your average construction costs and fees?  

Hi Chad! Sorry for late reply, I had to travel a bit for a project. 

I was with my old studio for 15 years. Our clients were mainly in NYC, Philly, DC, and Bethesda. New construction was around ~$1.5M-$3.5M. We charged 6%-10% for new construction, and 12-15% for renovation. We never ever went less than $90K profit for a residential project (we paid our consultants, not the client). On the high end, we were profiting $180K.   

Our studio was profitable. But there is one major problem, once you get into a strong niche of custom design homes, it becomes harder to breakout into different project types in the RFP process. It took us about 5 years to win a library project in the RFP process because we were competing against firms that had lots of public project experience and our portfolio and RFQ was almost exclusively residential.

You did custom homes for the wealthy. 

 As I said above, that is really the only type of single family project where an architect can charge those types of fees and make a profit. 

For 'normal' single family clients with a budget in the $500k range an architect needs to charge 15% in order to make a profit.  Do the math. 

$1.5 million - 10% fee = $150k

$500k - 15% fee = $75k

Professional Student - I am surprised by the 6-10% number. If you google it, everywhere it says Single Family residential fees are 10-20% Especially on smaller projects. I worked in DC for 20 years. I used to work at a firm in Georgetown where sometimes our fees were 25%. We would design through SD at an hourly rate, and when we finished the design, we would set the fee for production CD's and CA. We would use limited consultants and incorporate the structural engineering sketches into our wall sections. We would include soffits and ductwork in our RCP's. We would select all finishes and detail all millwork. If the client had a limited budget, GC's used to be way better 25 years ago, so we'd produce a builder's set with no specialized detailing.

Space Designer. Please read the description of the types of work and cost I work on/with. I am not sure why youre surprised. We did a project in great falls, ground up, and charged ~7% of construction cost (~2.5 million). Your descriptions are too vague. "sometimes 25%" "everywhere google says 10-20%" "single family residential" - These are all so vague. What kind of residential projects? What's the budget? When did you charge 25%? Always? If you are an architect charging 25% for a $2.5 Million custom residential project, congrats, but I do not believe that. We charge per phase of work. Most of our rates are divided into SD and CD.

Great Falls Montana?

I'll add one thing to BB's excellent point. You also don't need to 'super' specialize right away. Focusing in on a general project type or two will make you more marketable without being too limited. Emergency Services (fire stations and such), Clinical, Hospital, Multi Family, ect are just a few examples.

Once you get established in a 'general' specialty you can decide to really get 'super' specialized.  For example:  in the clinical setting specializing in emergency medical design, or cancer treatment facilities.  

Architects are multi-specialists. We can do all of the above on many projects and coordinate among the specialists when needed. Have you ever seen the specialists try to coordinate with each other? AND make it look good? They don't, they can't, they won't.

we specialize in leading the team of specialized people.