Building your dream home is the pinnacle of accomplishment and likely the biggest personal investment you will make.

Let’s be honest. Having a vision is not enough. You need the help of professionals to make your dream home a reality. If you get the opportunity to start your home-building journey, your most important hire is a licensed Architect. More than creating stylish home designs, having an Architect leading the infrastructure and construction is critical to completing the project on time, on budget and so that your expectation meets reality.

Here are 5 more valuable benefits of engaging a licensed architect to ensure the perfect execution of building your dream home.

1. Streamlined Roadmap

Professional architectural drawings are more than just design specifications – they are the essential roadmap to completing your home project build on time and on budget. Moreover, architects can connect you with qualified general and niche contractors as well as artisans who can execute any custom design components of the home.

Homeowners often have ideas of bits and pieces they would like incorporated into their home design. It can be challenging to bring ideas and components from different projects into one cohesive vision.

Architects can help you navigate through hundreds of processes, decisions, site conditions and government regulations required to get your home construction project off the ground. Whether it’s a new home build or renovation, an experienced architect is professionally trained to streamline activities to make the best use of time, materials and labor resources.

In short, architects save you money and stress during the home building or renovation process. 

With the cost of building materials steadily rising, its prudent to heed the help of professionals to avoid the financial pitfalls of wasteful design and poor project management.

The prices of goods used in residential construction ex-energy climbed 1.6% in February (not seasonally adjusted), according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Building materials prices increased 20.4%, year-over-year, and have risen 31.3% since January 2020. Over the past five months, the index has climbed 10.6%.
Comment on building materials costs from the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB)

2. Enhanced Property Value

Good design is always a worthwhile investment. A house that’s designed for practical function, flexibility and timeless aesthetics, tends to appreciate in value. Engaging a licensed architect to deliver a well-designed home is the right strategy for building an asset that increases in property value over time.

A good architect will help you see the potential of your home project, look beyond the initial brief and present a streamlined vision. For example, how do you want this house to function for you in the next five or ten years? Are you planning to grow your family and have enough space for everyone to live comfortably? Will you be selling the property want to get more than what you paid for?

Whatever your plans are, ann architect should understand your long term goals and design a plan around it.

U.S. house prices to rise another 10% this year as the Federal Reserve embarks on its expected series of interest rate hikes, according to a Reuters poll of property analysts who forecast a sellers’ market for another two years. Record low interest rates and a scarcity of homes to buy, combined with unexpectedly explosive demand during the pandemic, sent the average house price up 17% last year, the strongest annual rise in at least two decades.
Report from Reuters on when is the right time to build a home.

3. Reduced Risk and Liability

Architects prepare highly detailed, mathematical drawings to ensure there are no errors in the design’s execution. This may seem like excessive action but these measures conserve valuable budget dollars. Utilizing three dimensional building information modeling provides a realistic roadmap for contractors to guarantee budget and schedule accuracy as well as building safety.

Another important part of an architect’s responsibility is to perform due diligence in researching and assessing the viability of your home project and ensure that any risks are mitigated from the outset. We don’t always know the full extent of the site conditions until it’s too late. Is the local infrastructure, i.e. power, communication, transportation, water supply, stable? How about environmental conditions? Is it an area prone to hazards? This information is helpful in identifying potential challenges as well as opportunities that could impact the outcome of the project.

4. Creative Design Solutions

Do you want to build an old-timey home with all the modern amenities?

Or an environmentally sustainable dwelling of the future?

Your architect can find a creative design solution to meet your expectations and work around the requirements and challenges of the project. And if your architect is really clever with design, they can make project limitations work to their advantage and create something beautiful and cost-effective.

As the leader of your home building design project, your architect should have an intimate understanding of your vision to be able to correctly choose important materials and finishes for your home. Their knowledge of a wide range of materials enables them to execute the design based on budget requirements, proportions, and functionality of the space. Architects bring all the details together in a harmonious way to complete the final look of the house. 

5. High Quality Standards

A good architect understands that designing and building your home is a deeply personal undertaking. They work to win your trust by being the project leader, designer and agent responsible for ensuring the completion of your home build with the highest quality standards. They advocate for your interest throughout the project, working alongside with contractors, engineers and teamsters to deliver your vision.

The architect handles tough contract negotiations on your behalf in order to execute accurately on design specs such as: space-saving floor plans, proper building orientation and location, cost and energy efficient material selections, and so on.

For Your Own Peace of Mind – Hire A Licensed Architect Today!

You can trust your architect to assemble and mobilize the best team of specialists and contractors and manage your cost and timelines all while planning and designing the home of your dreams. Homeowners prefer not having to worry about the intricate details of each budget line item, building processes, sourcing labor, tracking progress and managing project execution. These take significant time, skill and experience and stress if you do it alone.

Sounds good, how much will it cost me?

Good architects charge for their services. Their fees should be viewed as an investment in timely execution, proper project management and preventing the need for repeat work. DIY options can appear attractive in the beginning but when building a home to live in, it is less expensive to pay for quality the first time.

Architect fees typically fall between 5% and 20% of the total project cost. For an average 2,700 square foot home with a build cost of $300,000, that comes out to $15,000 to $60,000. Less commonly, they charge $125 to $250 per hour and a few pros charge $2 to $10 per square foot.
Estimated cost variables affecting the rates of architects today according to Home Advisor.

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Talk to one of our team members. We’d love to hear about your vision of a perfect home and discuss the best path forward.