Buying Home Plans On The Internet: Who Can You Trust And What Is Legit?

The rise in social media has led to a lot of confusion about what is and is not real...the same rings true for architecture. It's very difficult to see if an image is a real finished project or just a render. 

And now with the rise of builder ready plans for sale on the internet it's even more important to know who you're working with is legit so you don't get scammed. 

In this episode Leslie, Breck, and Claire unpack everything you need to know to make smart choices when it comes to buying builder ready plans. They discuss key things to look for from a seller and why sellable plans are not as simple as buying and building. 

Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn in this episode: 

•  What are buyer ready plans. 
• What you need to know before you buy plans online. 
• The upgrades and options that are sometimes available with online plans.
• What you need to look out for so you don't get scammed. 
• Three Squared, Inc.'s buyer ready plans. 
• Breck's project highlight of the week: High Garden Arbor! 

Check out this supplemental episode for today's conversation:
Why You Need An Architect (...Especially If You Think You Dont't)

Click here for the full show notes from Episode 39.  

Ready to move forward with your project? Contact us here and we will put you in contact with the right member of our team.

Make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay up to date on new project releases, trainings, and more. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Innovative Real Estate Podcast with your hosts Leslie Horn, Brett Crandall, and Claire O'Learl. We're here to make your life easier as a real estate developer and teach you everything we've learned about designing and building innovative homes, multifamily, and mixed use structures. On this podcast, we'll be giving you our best advice, trainings, and QA segments so you can learn from our years of experience and make your innovative vision a reality. Welcome back to the show, everyone. We are your hosts, Claire.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Leslie and Breck.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

And today we're going to be bringing you the best of the best in uh how to vet out design firms on the internet. So if you have ever thought of, oh, maybe it'll just be easier to purchase some plans on the internet and go from there, yes, maybe. And we will actually be sharing uh an announcement on today's episode about what we're cooking up here in the Three Squared Labs. But we uh we also just want to give you some insights on how you can avoid maybe making a purchase that could go south with a company that doesn't have your best interest in mind, because there are a lot of them out there here on the internet, uh, especially when it comes to container homes and things like that, that are really cool um designs that catch people's eyes. So before we get into the the uh the topic of conversation for today, we're gonna kick it off with our project highlight of the week. Breck, please take it away.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Coming to you from the Greater Ann Arbor area, specifically Dexter Township, Michigan, lovely little town just north of Ann Arbor, where we are actually helping a client build a new cul-de-sac, like a whole development, um, consisting of five houses and five outbuildings that will be used for various purposes. High Garden Arbor is the name of the overarching company. And we're working on some really, really cool houses there. Uh, we have three models of homes that are gonna be uh, you know, two of them are gonna be repeated, but we've got a large single family house uh with lots of guest space and party space. We have a medium-sized house, and then we've got a very uh efficient duplex building. So these are three models that we're all putting into this new neighborhood. So we've had to go through road commissions and develop like a new cul-de-sac for this area. Uh, but the clients came across this amazing slice of property that has some wetlands and a creek that runs through it. Uh, we're gonna leave it all as much natural topography as possible. So we're gonna keep the the trees and shrubs and everything that's existing there on the site, uh, except for the areas that we're building. So we'll be putting in three homes in the first phase, along with three, you could consider them pole barn buildings, but they're actually built uh with shipping containers. So, you know, you've probably seen that model in the past where you do, you know, a stack of shipping containers and spaced out, and then you bridge that with some overall trusses. Uh, and so that's what we're doing for the barn buildings behind each of these homes. Uh, and each one will have a specific use. And we're really, really excited for these clients. They're already working on their next development, so they're keeping us busy as we move forward into the new year. Uh, but we'll be launching this off with the first six buildings of this development and then following up with an additional four for a total of 10 buildings. It's five homes and five outbuildings that will develop High Garden Arbor in Dexter Township, Michigan.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yay, nice. Amazing. And we will have those up on our socials. Actually, we've already have some of the uh like the conceptual designs on our socials. I know we just uh just finished up a batch of some more detailed renderings, so we'll probably share those shortly too. We'll link everything down below for you guys listening. Breck, I'm wondering if you can, before we get too deep into today's conversation, can you share with people the difference in their options when they're getting started? They want to, you know, develop an Airbnb or a rental home or a duplex or multifamily, you know, the different options that they have when moving forward with architectural, the difference between maybe a full schematic process versus something like builder-ready plans.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Sure. Well, you could just do it yourself in a vacuum of space and not get any approvals whatsoever and deal with the hammer of the law later on and make a bunch of very, very costly mistakes and then get your pants suit off, which I have come across more than twice. But you got to be careful in that regard. And we have a whole episode on why it's important to hire an architect. So we can point you back to that one in the past because there's a lot of notes that are going to overlap with what we're talking about today. But really, there's there's there's two main paths here. There's one you can start from scratch with a custom design. And a custom design, I will, in almost all instances, encourage people to pursue because it's unique to you, the client. It's unique to your development, to your locale, to the outside influences that surround your building, because architecture is, in essence, a response to its environment. So you're dealing with where is the sun? You know, it's like people forget about that. Where is the sun coming from and how does it move across the sky? Because that's going to influence where your windows are, where your skylights are, where your pool is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So custom design is always a great route. Um, however, it can be a little bit more costly and time intensive. So we've seen the dawn of the internet age uh over the last decade, this influx of what people refer to as builder-ready plans, sellable plans, a plan that you can buy off the internet that is everything that you need to take it to the municipality and get your seal approval so that you could start construction. Now, if you've ever developed anything in your life, there are a lot of moving parts to developing a building. Buildings are very complicated, and what happens below the ground is actually the hard part. You've heard me say this before. Like a building, not that complicated. If you build a shed in the woods and it has no utilities, no power, no access to anything, it's a pretty simple process. I mean, we've been doing this for thousands of years. Like humans know how to build shelter. It's how do I get water to me? Where does my waste go? How do I get electricity? Do I have gas lines? That's where things get really, really complicated. And so, without all the infrastructure in place, having a builder ready plan gets you part of the way there. And so that's what we're here to discuss today, which is what is a builder-ready plan and how does it influence your process? How can it speed things up? Um, how can it benefit you? And what to be on the lookout for because far too often people will just sell you a plan of what happens above the ground and you're on your own for everything else. Well, guess what? How do you put it on the ground? What's underneath your building? You probably need a foundation. Not probably, you absolutely need a foundation. But there's a lot of not only built their ready plans, but there's also a lot, there's a there's a third category here, which is just straight up built modular construction. So like you can, yeah, I'm sure you've seen an ad on your social media scrolling where you've come across like, hey, you can get this accessory dwelling unit or this office unit, and you can just purchase it straight up off Amazon. Great. Well, what happens when that truck rolls up with this building on the back of it? And you're like, oh, I didn't think about getting this off of the truck or putting it in my backyard. So there's there's a lot to unpack here. So, Claire, I'm gonna throw it back to you. You've seen a lot of these on the internet uh over the years. We've been referencing and and communicating with a number of companies. So, what do you typically see when it comes to let's hone in on the middle option, the builder ready plans? What does that mean to you and what is typically included when you see this?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, so my favorite thing to see when I see builder ready plans on the internet is when they've got the option for the floor plans, but then they also have like upgrade options. Like you can buy a full construction document set. You could add on uh maybe an hourly rate or a package of hours for consulting services, because it is inevitable in the process of building something, that something's gonna come up that you don't know how to navigate. And that's when things start to get really, really expensive is when you make progress in one direction where maybe there is a missed piece at one level, and then you have to backtrack and start over, or maybe um you just don't know how to communicate with the municipality, and it's you then have trouble getting through permit approvals. So there's a lot of elements to this that especially um newer developers, but also, you know, maybe experienced developers who are wanting to get out of traditional uh lumber framing and do something more innovative, get maybe like a cool factor in there for an investment property or a vacation rental. There's elements where it's it's critical really to have an experienced team on your side through this process. So that's my favorite thing to see when it comes to build already plans. However, it's hardly an option. Most of what I see are plans that cost like $200. And it's like, oh, amazing. Why would I spend $20,000 on a construction document set when I can get these floor plans for $200? And then you get into the whole dialogue around AI and what you know, computer-generated images actually look like real photographs now. Like I can't tell the difference 90% of the time between a rendering and a built structure. So you see this beautiful image, and the price tag's like $200 for these plans, and it becomes really tricky really quickly to tell what's legit and what's not. So I think Leslie, you wanted to share just a bit of a story on how perplexed you are by some of these companies that you're seeing out here who are offering these, and then we can start to get into tips for our listeners on what to look out for and also what's coming down the pipeline on our end because we have resisted offering these plans for a long time because we don't want to be like these frankly scammers on the internet. We don't want to be like that. So um we're gonna be developing that's all they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

They're there to that's all that's it, all they're doing. And it's it's really sad. I mean, I've had people call and they're like, Well, I I want, can you, can you? I've got the exact I've I paid for a design. Can you like make sure it's all legit for this lot? Um, can you do a code review? And then this young woman sent me her design. She spent, I think, $2,200 for it. And Breck, I even think I sent it to you. And I think you started laughing immediately because the garage they had made into they had two containers for the garages and they had two cars in the in in each side. You couldn't even open up the doors in the garage. That's how like this was not a plan. This is not a plan. And it it just it it breaks my heart because this is money people are just literally flushing down the toilet. And you don't know if they're legit, you don't know if um, you know, are they stamped? Nope. Have they even looked at your property? Nope. And the sad thing is, I can tell you, had I even known about build a ready plan 10 years ago, I would have taken those options and it would have cost me even more money because I'm I'm frugal, right? I'm like, hey, what can can we do it? Can we do it better? Can we do better on our pricing? Can we do this? And I would fall for it. I guarantee you I would fall for it because these plans look amazing. Um, I even went on a site and it said the top, you know, container projects, you know, by architects who know what they're doing, right? And I'm like, oh wow, this is amazing. Three squared's name was on there. And they had a couple of our projects posted on on their website and said, you know, talk to you know, three squared if you want to know more about, you know, this plan. And so I'm like, well, this is so weird because how, you know, how are people gonna get in touch with this? So I created a new little email account and I wrote my own. Leslie the super sleuth. Yeah, I know, yeah, exactly. So um, and I gotta tell you, I'm still expecting Three Square to reach out to me to talk to me about these amazing plans. That was like three months ago. And I so I mean, so if anybody's done that and gone out for the the listeners that are here, if you've gone out and you've wanted Three Square to reach out to you because you went onto a non-three squared account, you wrote a nice note saying how much you love our designs, go to our website. And I promise you, you'll get a response. But I think those kind of things are happening so much because then that list, those email lists get sold to other people. And I don't know what they're doing. I really don't know, but it went into some rabbit hole. You know, and I think it's I think people right now, because of the scammers, and I'm gonna like I think we should call them scammers, they have no interest in supporting people and designing their homes. They have a product that they just want to sell and they can get 200, 1,000. I've seen them for 1800, I've seen them for $5,400. You can get, you know, they're not stamped, right? However, they're the full set of plans that honest to goodness, I don't it's so one of our core values are to be good stewards. And the fact that somebody is selling something on a website, that person will grab those those plans and not be able to use them. It is not built and it's not designed for your lot. You don't even know if you can because of what kind of coded zoning compliance. And so uh and and again, just to your point, Claire, we have resisted offering builder-ready plans because we would not be good stewards if we didn't do it in a way that was thoughtful and that the house actually or you know, duplex could actually be built. You know, we want to work with people and be good stewards about we don't want to take on a project just to take on a project that's never going to be built.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

So we've resisted builder ready plans until until now. Claire, I think you can make this announcement. Yeah, so this is huge news here at Breesquarde. We have, for as long as we've been around, only offered essentially full service schematic design work, at times conceptual design work, uh leading into then your actual blueprints, permitting, and ideally getting your building built. Um and now we're at a point where we have learned so much over the past gosh decade now. Um, and we do have a lot of people coming to us who want to work with us, and we just don't have enough time to work with everybody. Like we don't have enough bandwidth to actually help everyone who's reaching out. So, what we have arrived at is the conclusion of how to merge offering builder ready plans with perhaps the option to upgrade to a consulting package or a full C D set, um, and really just doing our best to bridge that gap for people who aren't quite yet ready for the full schematic custom process, or maybe um they've cross-referenced with what we've got available and the plan will work for their lot. Um, or maybe they want to tack on uh an extra option to do a code and zoning review or something like that. Great. We're happy to offer that. So we are still fleshing out the uh the exact details of what this is gonna look like, but we're targeting a mid-April launch for three squared builder ready plans for our first sets. We're gonna have a couple options and then expand from there. Um, we're currently reaching out to some of our clients to see who would be open to selling the plans that they invested, their dollars to get a custom design for, because we always want to be good stewards to our current clients and you know make sure we're not selling anybody's plans who doesn't want them sold. Um, but it's uh it's an exciting time.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

It really is. And I'm glad you said that because there are some projects that people will call us and say, this is the exact house that I want. Can you just sell me those plans? And we're like, no, somebody else paid really lot, you know, they paid decent money and took time, sweat, and energy to get the dream home that they've been envisioning to, you know, to build or the the best investment property. And so as a company, we've really, you know, we will ask some of our, we will ask our clients if they would like to participate in this, but we are creating some some ones that I think would be, you know, people just sometimes don't want to get all the creative juices. They say, I love this, it's not my forever home, but I do want a new home. And I like this brand, I like this particular design because it hits all of the design elements. So we're going to be offering those. And I think at the end of the day, you'll be saving at least 50% of our traditional fees by all the time, you know, because you still have to have some engineering, you know, we we can't design one house to fit every single lot in the entire country. So there's, you know, there's just so many of those details, but we're really excited about it. Breck, I'm actually really curious to know from you because you're the design expert. And you know, when it comes to like seeing all of these designs on the internet, is there any like surefire way to know if they're fake? You know, you can go to all these websites and you see their projects and they might have one real one and other ones that look, I mean, or you can tell the the ones that are drawn um or designed in 2D, but I don't know. There's this 3D technology that's amazing. Talk to a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Well, I got bad news for our listeners here because the reality is we can't trust our eyes anymore. That's a hard pill to swallow. Even even for me, I mean, I've been doing this for 13 years, and I can't tell the difference in many instances. Now they're good renderings, they're bad renderings. When I say rendering, that's like a representation of a building, right? And renderings used to be we'd hand sketch them out and then we'd watercolor paint them or something like that. And there were very, very talented people who were capable of doing that, uh, and created this cartoonish image that would sell the building and would win competitions so that the building could be built. Nowadays, renderings are we have digital capabilities where you cannot tell the difference between what's real and what's not, to the point where you can't trust videos either. Now, this was a fascinating moment for me where I had a come to Jesus moment because uh a good colleague of mine from college uh started working for an automotive company where they were doing uh, you know, the rendered versions of vehicles. So if you're like on a vehicle website and you were picking the color, you know, change the color of the car, change the hub cap, so on and so forth, um, that they would be able to render those out and swap it out. Well, she was working on a car crash video, and she showed me this video with no prompt whatsoever. And I watched this and I was like, oh my goodness, are these like, are these people alive? Like, what happened? And she's like, Oh no, the entire thing was digital. I made that. And I I like I dropped what was in my hands, and I'm just like, I cannot trust what's on the screen any longer. You actually cannot distinguish between rendering and reality because we have the digital technology. The CGI has caught up to speed where don't trust what you see on the internet. Now that's a that's an overarching statement, but we're here to talk about like, you know, construction firms and digital firms that are, you know, selling you plans. But we're trying what we're trying to position here today is there are other flags that you can look at to know if somebody's trying to steal your money. Claire just talked about if they offer you plans with no support network whatsoever, because Leslie mentioned it too. If you buy builder ready plans on the internet, they will not and cannot be stamped and sealed by a licensed architect. There's no way that they could do that because they don't even know where. You are. They might not even be licensed where you're trying to build this. Who knows what country you're purchasing these from? Who knows, you know, what the rules are for you know being able to even add an accessory unit or to build a house on new property. Like there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to that. So that's number one. Like, if there's no support network for you, there's no safety net to help you through that process, you have to have foundation engineering. Like, and foundations are gonna vary from where you are trying to build. Like our frost depth here in Michigan, where we're working on a number of projects, is you gotta go down into the ground 42 inches because that ground's gonna freeze and it's gonna heave uh when it does freeze and it's gonna wreck your building if you're not building on some solid earth that doesn't freeze and thaw constantly. Then we're working in Florida and we're working in Atlanta. And in Atlanta, frost depth is like six inches, you know. So those are wildly different foundation plans. So if your builder ready plans, unquote, are coming with foundation drawings. Oh, that's kind of a red flag because how do they know where you're building or what you're trying to build? So those are a couple of the first things that I would look at. I would also look at, you know, do they have any? It's I again, it's hard to gauge what's real and what's not, but people, human beings are a good metric. So you could superimpose people and images, it is possible. But if you see process photos of construction along the way, that's a good hint that this is actually being built somewhere. If you watch videos of the building in process, not a video of the finished building, but if you're watching a video of the process of people, you know, actually swinging hammers or pouring concrete or lifting things into place, then I'm a little bit more confident. And how you can verify that is through testimonials. So, what testimonials are on the website? Now, here's a caveat because the internet is tricksy and people are always out to take your money, honestly. Uh, so be careful. It's like every email you get now. I got an email this morning from you know, like Norton Security that says that I have a build due. And I was like, even I was like, Oh my goodness, what did I do? What is this a mistake? No, it's it's just a scam, and I need to remind myself this is a scam, so always check yourself. Just have a good head on your shoulders and verify these things step by step. So testimonials can be made up. Honestly, Google reviews can be you know, you can log in through a different account and just write whatever you were gonna write, but read the language in there. Sometimes it actually seems genuine and like it's coming from someone else. But what I really like is when they have references, when there's actually someone I can call and actually talk to, I mean, that's the best. But I mean, imagine how annoyed you would be if you were the first person that built like this build already plan, and then you get a phone call every 15 minutes from people being like, it's just real. It's like, okay. So we're not gonna bug those people. But seeing videos of people talk about the process and the project is also a really good sign. So if you if you see people have gone through the process and have actually worked with a company, you can hear the genuine tone in their voice if they've actually gone through the process and it was successful for them. So testimonials of reference are a great way to kind of gauge where we're at. And then I'll just circle back to the I started with it and I'll end with it. What is a support network after you purchase this item? If there's no support network for you and there's no path forward, there's no option forward, you're probably getting taken for a ride. And they're gonna steal your money and you're gonna get stuck with these plans. That's not to say that you can't take these plans and find somebody to help you across the finish line, but that's a big haul. And that's honestly back to our episode of why to hire an architect. That's what we do in the first place. So why don't you just let us create the house of your dreams and work with you through that process while giving you the support of starting with code and zoning to understand if this is even a possibility, then working through the design. That's honestly like the quick part. Once we have the design, then it's engineering, then it's talking to general contractors, then it's figuring out how we're actually going to get your utilities run to the building. Because again, I can't harp on this enough. What happens underneath a building is just as, if not more important than the building itself. Because if you don't have those systems to supply you, you don't have an operating home. You don't have a functional business. There's there's no way to build at that point. So those are some real big red flags and a couple of ways that you can gauge it. But honestly, at the end of the day, follow your heart. Because if it's a company that seems trustworthy to you, then it's somebody that you can actually reach out to and engage with and have a conversation with. But if you don't trust the people that you're working with, then you're gonna have a long, long uphill battle. So I hope you can find a company that you trust. And there is no company that I'm aware of that is more transparent or forthcoming with information, lessons learned, than right here at Three Squared Inc. The real three squared ink, not the fake three squared inks, because I can't list like seven websites that are posting our projects and pretending to be us. That is not three squared ink all spelled out.com. That's the real us.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Well said, Breck. Well said.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I think this is a great place to end off here. Um and of course, we're biased, but sometimes we are a little more forthcoming than we need to be on our lessons learned.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

And like oversharing is uh quality as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, oversharing. We love oversharing. So uh absolutely please keep in the loop with uh future episodes here as we develop our build already plans, as we develop how this process is going to work. And Carly, our lovely marketing manager, I would love if you could link for everyone in the show notes the podcast for why and when you should hire an architect and also one of our case study client episodes so that everyone can check out the podcast show notes and just go right to one of those episodes if they feel relevant. We'll also have our contact form down there so you can get in touch with our team. You can ask us questions because we're real people and we like to do that. So please uh please reach out, check out our projects, and we will see you all in the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Thank you. Bye-bye. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you found it so valuable, you want to connect with us one on one, click the link in the description to tell us all about your project so we can help you get started.