No self-respecting design professional would sell off a design another client paid for. Legal and permit issues aside, I would show you the door if you were to ask this of my office. We have developers who specialize in selling mass-produced housing plans. Just think about it: someone spends real money on a custom designed home just to see the same thing pop-up elsewhere. If I were that client, I would be furious at the architect.

a house design that was developed and built by an architect for his residence

It is the architect's personal house so no pissed off client involved.  I still wouldn't do it if I were him, but you never know....

Hmmm.  I've called 7 architects here in Md and all but one licenses their designs with a reuse fee when they're not prohibited from doing so.

Any house that can be plopped on a site is a poorly designed house.  A house must be adapted to the site.  Even if its a flat lot in a typical condition!  

zich6: ".....so that we can determine if his required reuse fee is reasonable"

At the end of the day, this particular architect will, or will not, be interested in granting you this license. If he is interested and quotes you a fee, only you can determine whether you think his fee is reasonable and something you can afford -- why do you care what we think? Why don't you ask those "7 architects ... in MD" what they charge as a reuse fee?

My guess is that - because this is his personal residence - he'll probably be dis-inclined to grant you a license to make an exact copy of his house. More likely, since you seem to like the quality of his work, he'll try to convince you to hire him to provide a custom design that is tailored to your unique requirements, and the specific characteristics of your site, and your budget. 

As for your comment "the architect will not be performing any work" - you'll probably want to be careful about throwing that phrase around. Architects tend to be sensitive about the "value" of their custom designs, just like recording artists and movie actors tend to get pissed off when people pirate copyrighted CDs and DVDs.

Offer him $250. I'm sure he will appreciate the compliment.

wow,

is it me or has the profession been marginalized into joke?

this is a real question right?

"this is a real question right?"

Yeah.. It's a real question among people in the AEC industry.  You will =never= stop it being asked.  This is a business, not a philosophical fetish.

Anyhow...

I consider about half my fee the 'intellectual property' portion.  The other half is the 'technical service' portion.  That's for residential work, at least.

So... If this guy is doing $600K budget houses for $20K, I wouldn't expect to pay less than $10K for a developed design.  You'll still need to adapt it to the site, which means you'll need a drafting technician to provide a site plan, and probably a bit of site engineering.  Also, you'll need a PE or Arch to stamp the structural drawings for the re-sited building.  You'd probably end up paying for structural as if it were a unique building.

I'd just approach the Architect directly and say "How much for a house just like yours on our site?" and see what he/she says.  He/she will be flattered, and that right there might get you a bit of a break on fees.   See what the Architect will quote you for a fresh design in the same opus, too... That might be darn close to what you'd end up paying to reuse a plan (unless you love that plan so much, that you just can't live without it!).

Hope that helps.  Glad to hear you'll be employing a gaggle of local tradespeople on the project. :-)  That's always welcome. 

Just to add....  I've been approached for this exact thing probably a dozen times in my career.  Half of those times, I ended up signing the client to a fresh design, after explaining the logistics of the re-use, and demonstrating, on the spot,  how I could deliver an optimum design for the site by starting fresh, and still meet their budget and schedule goals.

Try harder.  It works.

Very nice posts, DMS.

I will add that in my home state an architect *can* be held liable for any work s/he is involved in, regardless of whether they stamp drawings or are involved in construction or not. We're a "personal liability" state, which means as a Registered Professional I'm held to a high standard of liability where my design work is concerned. So even just turning over a set of pre-designed drawings exposes me to significant liability, and any fee I would demand would reflect that.

It's likely not really a significant a cost savings not to just hire him outright to design something custom for you, specific to your site, and in the style that you like. If you can afford a $600k house, you can afford the architect's fee to get what you really want from the house.

Which reminds me of an article I having somewhere in my teaching files that shows how if you have a 30-year mortgage on a home, and figure in land costs and permits and interest and all the costs associated with building and paying for that house, over the life of the mortgage the 10-20% fee for an architect works out to like 3% the total cost. Isn't it worth paying 3% more to get a home that is custom to you and your family? That fits exactly the way you want to live and the kinds of memories you want to have of your home?

I keep getting the question "can you redraw this stock plan cheaper than I can buy it online?" Cheap bastards.

People pay realtors commissions with no problem.  

Please keep in mind that the architect will not be performing any work...

He DID do the work.

People pay realtors commissions with no problem

Realtors have the advantage of bringing money TO the owner rather than being an outlay of cash.  When all the checks are going around the table at closing, the seller is in a happy mood, rather than writing the first of many checks at the beginning of what he knows is going to be an expensive process.  Different frame of mind.

It also doesn't hurt that the Realtors have a monopoly on the multi-list which is pretty much essential to sell a house in a typical market.

A well-designed house should sell itself, but try telling that to a client, particularly if the client is your typical chiseling builder/developer.  Acchh, don't get me started!

I really wonder where people get the idea that architects don't do any work. As if the lines appear on the paper by themselves.

I would say it it is a design of an house for the Architect...I doubt if there is really a set of complete construction documents.  He most likely was changing things on the fly, and most of those changes were carried out by thumbnail sketches  or conversations with the master craftsmen he had  working on the job.  Sometimes it takes holding on piece of wood against another to get your point across.  So if his fee is really low you are going to be coming back to him for clarification time and time again and it will be  on an hourly based fee. 

I really wonder where people get the idea that architects don't do any work

Think about how architects are portrayed in movies and TV.  Have you ever seen them on charette or in unemployment lines?  They are always casually but elegantly dressed, sketching away or studying models in their spiffy office, living in cool houses and driving cool cars, and getting the hot ladies.  That's a big reason why the public thinks it's easy and why the kiddies keep pouring out of architecture schools despite incurring six-figure student loan debts.

Spent my Sunday drafting for a lo budget project. Now that its night im busy getting the ladies. I mean...busy ripping the crap out of my attic so I can build an office and guest room. Cuz I can't afford a contractor.

Spent my day shoveling snow, yet thinking about projects at the same time. Went to lunch feeling the snow shoveling.  Did some computer drawing, sent files and hopefully will get the big of from the "Architectural Gods"  Branding Architects.... the guys you love but hate at the same time....Think I'm going to go fart and  call it a day.

I want a custom designed house just like that one!

$600k buys a lot of stupidity. Not as much a $1m, but a boatload nonetheless.

Thanks, Donna... Nice talking with you again!

Miles,

If you were trying to quote my scenario, you misquoted.  I said:

"How much for a house just like yours on our site?"

So, that implies it is =not= a custom home, but rather a duplicate of an existing home placed on a different site... Which may or may not work, and which may or may not be 'optimum' to connoisseurs like ourselves. 

Nobody asked about the other half dozen I'd been approached on... <g>

They were rejected.  Primarily on grounds that they were indeed custom homes for other clients, and I wasn't willing to even attempt to ask my clients if they were willing to have it duplicated... Because my clients are special.... Because they're MINE.

The half dozen I mentioned that did go forward were all spec houses to begin with.  All but one of those were for the same client I had originally done the house for to begin with... They wanted to 'do it again', as it were.  I'm skilled at creating marketable plans, and do a good number of spec jobs.  Like I said, except for the one, we started fresh on all of them, after a bit of salesmanship and horse trading on my own part.

For you folks just getting in this business:  If you want to have your =own= practice, you better be a natural salesperson... Because you're going to be selling a six-figure plus product that DOES NOT EXIST. 

Look, people... You can still do well in this business and maintain your ethics and self respect.  It's not really that difficult.  I can guarantee, however, that poverty will accompany any dogma you may harbor.  Listen to the proposal before you reject it, at least.... Unless you hate money. <g>

The original poster framed the situation very succinctly, and in his scenario there were no visible breeches of standard practice ethics I could see.  I was simply responding to the issue in the precise terms it was presented.  Whether or not it serves 'Art' wasn't on the table... And unless he was talking to Ray Kappe or something, it probably wouldn't be an issue, anyway (though I don't know that for sure, of course).

The World will continue to be mostly utilitarian and un-inspired, as it has mostly been over the current 50,000 years of human history.  Once in a while, small glimmers of genius will be seen, and noticed by some... But mostly unseen and ignored by the vast mass of said humanity.

Now.... Back to my soon-to-be-failed-like-every-other-conceived Utopian housing plan!!! <wrings hands like Dr. Evil>

Donna said,

"...over the life of the mortgage the 10-20% fee for an architect works out to like 3% the total cost."

Yeah, that's quite true.  However, for a spec builder it's all front-end... That kind of amortization is not a factor.

My sense is that the original poster was approaching this as a spec builder.  If that's not the case, then Donna's comment is spot on, of course.  That said, it's just like explaining how the Federal Reserve Bank counterfeits our money... Too much math for the average rube to wrap their head around.

This is what it's like living during the Fall of Rome, folks.  Sad but true.

DMS-USA, I like your writing.  Nice posts!

DMS - my comment was an observation on the OP.

Miles,

Oh - Then my mistake, my apologies.

However, he did not have 'custom' in his post, I see, except in terms of creating a new design, as I had also illustrated.

Specifically, we're interested in a house design that was developed and built by an architect for his residence.

Sounds custom to me. 

My golly, so many of you are so colossally negative. Yes obviously 'a custom house for all' is ideal but what about modular? And I am not talking about crap vinyl sided box modular-  but good, evolved, beautiful modular. Efficient and well designed. Obviously every site is different but you can take a handful of really well designed modulars and pick the one that is most suitable to the site and create a site specific foundation and turn the house appropriately for solar orientation and then you are done. Isn't this the basis of so much of what we are tying to do? Is what this person is asking for really so awful Do architects have to be so damn negative all of the time? 

Yes of course the architect should get paid a decent amount for a good design but anyone who has done work for a developer knows that you can build the same house more than once. And you can do it well.

And you can also take a pre designed house and sell it to a client and then charge for modifications. It's a fairly nice business model and especially since not everyone in the work d can afford a custom designed home.