We have a little 3 bedroom IP on a corner block in Morwell, Victoria that we purchased earlier this year. The yield is fairly good, although not positive cash flow by any means. The main reason for the purchase was the potential to develop the back yard. The weather board house is right up the front of the block, so building a 3 br unit at the back and sub dividing should be fairly plain sailing (I hope). This is the first project of this type that we are attempting.
Anyway, more to the point of this thread. Late last year, yes just a few weeks ago, I contacted several architects / draftsman to get quotes on drawing up both concept plans to submit to council for planning approval along with working drawings for the nominated builder.
Pretty straight forward stuff I would have thought. This unit is not going to be any Taj Mahal! In fact I would have thought that any architect / draftsman would just have to rat through their files to find something that would sit on the block with required boundary offsets, etc. A few hundred bucks maybe.
Not the case, the first quote came in at $5,580.00. This included around $1000.00 of council fees, a soil report and a neighborhood and site description. I must say that I was taken back with this somewhat. A second quote came in at around $1000.00 less for the same work.
I then remembered the Elance and Guru sites that I have used in the past for CAD engineering work. These past projects were non building related.
My initial thoughts were to engage an architect / draftsman that were familiar with the local council planning and building requirements, but then I thought why is necessary? Everything is on line now, research pertaining to local regs is available to anyone anywhere in the world and queries can be forwarded to council departments via email from anywhere in the world.
With these thoughts in mind I put the project requirements up on Guru.com. I stipulated that research would need to be done for the drawings to comply with local and state codes. Obviously it wasn’t just a matter of having someone just slap a few drawings together.
Well, over the ensuing days I received 26 submissions from mostly qualified people wanting to take this project on.
Submissions came from virtually all around the world. There were several from the US, very similar in price to here in AUS., a few from India, one each from Mexico, Pakistan, Hungry, Etheopia, Haiti, Ireland, Malaysia, Greece, Philippines, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.
Choosing someone that’s more than capable out of these submissions is no easy task, but I thought it would be time well spent. As with my other engineering projects I have formed a very good business relationship with a couple of guys that work together in Romania. They are both qualified mechanical engineers and work for me for US$15.00 per hour. They are fantastic.
Guru.com does have a feedback system similar to eBay, but most of my submissions were first timers, which makes it a bit harder.
I find the best way to sift through the applicants is to send emails thanking them for their interest in my project and just confirming the project criteria with them. It then becomes fairly easy to weed out the ones that may not stack up.
My criteria are:-
1. Fast response time to my emails.
2. Good command of the English language.
3. Relevant questions relating to the project.
4. Good portfolio of prior works.
5. Cheap rates.
The cheapest quote I got for the project was the guy from
Ireland. He initially quoted me US$100.00 and said he knew CAD “pretty well” and that he was strapped for cash.
Obviously not a good contender!
Quotes ranged from US$5000.00 from submissions from the US down to US$200.00 from the Philippines and India.
I have shortlisted four contenders ranging in price from US$400.00 down to US$200.00. I’m almost inclined to take all four for the project for a total of US$1200.00. This would ensure I would have the right contacts for the next, possibly bigger project.
Interestingly I met another small developer recently who told me he just spent over AUD$20,000.00 with his architect for doing 3 townhouses in Maidstone. He told me that he is paying AUD$120.00 per hour for amendments, etc.
Needless to say, he is going to Guru.com for future projects.
I’ll keep updates happening on how things pan out, but would also be interested to hear if anyone else has gone down this road.
It seems the world is shrinking due to this great resource of the internet.
Forgot to mention also that the payment methods these sites have set up are very safe. Funds are transferred into escrow and await clearance confirmation once the job is complete.
Anyway, more to the point of this thread. Late last year, yes just a few weeks ago, I contacted several architects / draftsman to get quotes on drawing up both concept plans to submit to council for planning approval along with working drawings for the nominated builder.
Pretty straight forward stuff I would have thought. This unit is not going to be any Taj Mahal! In fact I would have thought that any architect / draftsman would just have to rat through their files to find something that would sit on the block with required boundary offsets, etc. A few hundred bucks maybe.
Not the case, the first quote came in at $5,580.00. This included around $1000.00 of council fees, a soil report and a neighborhood and site description. I must say that I was taken back with this somewhat. A second quote came in at around $1000.00 less for the same work.
I then remembered the Elance and Guru sites that I have used in the past for CAD engineering work. These past projects were non building related.
My initial thoughts were to engage an architect / draftsman that were familiar with the local council planning and building requirements, but then I thought why is necessary? Everything is on line now, research pertaining to local regs is available to anyone anywhere in the world and queries can be forwarded to council departments via email from anywhere in the world.
With these thoughts in mind I put the project requirements up on Guru.com. I stipulated that research would need to be done for the drawings to comply with local and state codes. Obviously it wasn’t just a matter of having someone just slap a few drawings together.
Well, over the ensuing days I received 26 submissions from mostly qualified people wanting to take this project on.
Submissions came from virtually all around the world. There were several from the US, very similar in price to here in AUS., a few from India, one each from Mexico, Pakistan, Hungry, Etheopia, Haiti, Ireland, Malaysia, Greece, Philippines, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.
Choosing someone that’s more than capable out of these submissions is no easy task, but I thought it would be time well spent. As with my other engineering projects I have formed a very good business relationship with a couple of guys that work together in Romania. They are both qualified mechanical engineers and work for me for US$15.00 per hour. They are fantastic.
Guru.com does have a feedback system similar to eBay, but most of my submissions were first timers, which makes it a bit harder.
I find the best way to sift through the applicants is to send emails thanking them for their interest in my project and just confirming the project criteria with them. It then becomes fairly easy to weed out the ones that may not stack up.
My criteria are:-
1. Fast response time to my emails.
2. Good command of the English language.
3. Relevant questions relating to the project.
4. Good portfolio of prior works.
5. Cheap rates.
The cheapest quote I got for the project was the guy from
Ireland. He initially quoted me US$100.00 and said he knew CAD “pretty well” and that he was strapped for cash.
Obviously not a good contender!
Quotes ranged from US$5000.00 from submissions from the US down to US$200.00 from the Philippines and India.
I have shortlisted four contenders ranging in price from US$400.00 down to US$200.00. I’m almost inclined to take all four for the project for a total of US$1200.00. This would ensure I would have the right contacts for the next, possibly bigger project.
Interestingly I met another small developer recently who told me he just spent over AUD$20,000.00 with his architect for doing 3 townhouses in Maidstone. He told me that he is paying AUD$120.00 per hour for amendments, etc.
Needless to say, he is going to Guru.com for future projects.
I’ll keep updates happening on how things pan out, but would also be interested to hear if anyone else has gone down this road.
It seems the world is shrinking due to this great resource of the internet.
Forgot to mention also that the payment methods these sites have set up are very safe. Funds are transferred into escrow and await clearance confirmation once the job is complete.
they obviously have no idea how much work is involved. (sewer& stormwater diagram, site plan, shadow diagrams, floor plan/elevations/specification, consultants reports to name a few)
