Some architects on this site, and elsewhere, are constantly moaning about a "race to the bottom" on price, fees and quality. They are unhappy at being undercut, they want prices to be somehow artificially inflated, and they have their heads in the sand when it comes to current market reality. They want price control, market control, and they are in denial in my opinion.
I haven't raised my prices for commercial residential work [housing estates] by more than 5% since 1998.
Up until this year, I welcomed competition because it usually meant i had a chance at attracting more clients.
But this year was a disaster - while I have no problem being undercut, I cannot work for fees that don't cover my costs.
I realise it might be a shock to see someone in the professions drawing attention to the undermining nature of market-led prices.
The essence of business is to make enough today to allow you to continue in business tomorrow - if fee income falls below a certain threshold, you are out of business.
I also have a big problem with scare stories (peddled here and elsewhere) by vested interests regarding other architects who have faced up to market reality, and who have slashed prices to bring in business/cashflow, and to ultimately survive. ("Don't go for the cheap guy because your house will probably fall down. He must be a charlatan at that price. Beware, or you'll be sorry. Go for the higher-priced guy, because he must be kosher.) That sort of thing.
A sinkie might survive AND run a business profitably on €25,000, but not someone with a family.
I think this sort of stuff taints the advice given to some punters, because the advice has a hidden agenda, a subtext, which is to further the lot of architects and artificially boost prices. I don't like it, and it should be highlighted for what it is - spin.
There is no spin in what I write - I don't tend to mix professional advice with comment on fee levels.
I have offered my clear opinion as to why fees below a certain level cannot be entertained and backed it up with a worked example in
this post.
You have offered not one word of rebuttal, preferring instead to invoke "market forces" and it now seems clear that you cannot make a case against it.
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I give professional competent FREE advice here on AAM based both on my qualification as an architect and the expertise I have gained over the past twenty years.
The agenda behind this FREE advice is clear;
- to offer competent advice to those in difficulties
- to advise people of the pitfalls of the professions and the construction world
- to show them the tried and tested ways of bringing matters to a successful resolution for all concerned
I make no excuse for wanting to be paid commensurately in Real Life for my skills or for making AAM readers aware that there is a danger in undermining a profession to the point where competent service is unlikely to be given.
I have offered substantially similar advice to posters on AAM about builders, warning them to avoid suspiciously low tenders.
I don't hear you complaining about that part of my posts, since you seem to have made a study of them.
Ireland is overflowing with architects, all of whom are hungry for work, because there is very little of it out there. That's tough if you are an architect with bills to pay, really tough - and those of us lucky enough to have a bit of an income should sympathise. But it is great if you are a consumer looking for an architect, or a photographer, or a graphic designer, or whatever you're having yourself. Prices are a fraction of what they were during the boom. Hurray!
I would have no problem with even the €500 fee allowed for by another poster if prices in every sector of the economy had also dropped by 75% but they haven't.
Dropping the bottom out of any market means there will be a huge loss of skills in that market, leading to a lower overall quality of services, which, because of the long lead in times to achieve professional competence it will take any profession time to recover.
In the meantime poor service will be available because the normal grading and interlocking graduated hierarchies of experience and abilities will be gone.
Huge gaps will open up in the service or profession caused by people leaving it.
Unless fees are maintained at some level of profitability this flight of talent and expertise will mean that when the market returns, the necessary professional services based won't be there and the market will be rife with cowboys charging what they like for substandard services.
If you want sustainable growth in any service or profession, you have to smooth out the excesses which are what cause the structural damage.
I recently sought prices from several architects - all RIAI registered and qualified - to design a modest extension to my home (design only). The range in prices was unbelieveable for essentially the same service (all of them said they were pitching for the business according to RIAI guidelines). From well under €1,500 incl VAT to €6,000-plus-VAT-plus-a-moxy-load-for-spurious-miscellaneous-unspecified-"expenses".
I have no problem with those prices for an extension - €1,500 is a little tight if its to design it and lodge a permission and its too low to take it to site.
My problem in the previous thread was with the client's fee estimate of €500 for designing an entire house and lodging a planning application.
But this is an extension and your lowest fee offer was three times what the OP offered for designing and lodging an entire house!
So please don't misrepresent my concerns at below cost selling as undermining my competent advices given here on AAM.
Some of these guys have faced market reality, and some haven't. All of them have the same letters after their name. All would provide references. All would have to file designs adhering to the same building codes and regulations. Standards might differ, but not by more than six grand's worth.
I think you'll find that there are differences between those offices in running costs, quality, experience and ability that could justify that difference in price.
The top end of €6,000 may sound high to some, but it all depends on what service you expect, and you usually get what you pay for.
A demanding client can run and architect ragged and take up almost all his time when the job is on site - €6,000 may actually be a little light.
To put this in perspective, the RIAI in the past year calculated its prices for the ARAE assessment on the basis of a charge our rate of €60 per hour.
€60 per hour is a charge out rate, not what an architect earns, its the business turnover and represents 100 hours of work by a mid range professional.
100 hours is under three weeks work, which for a demanding client seeking a once off extension, including perspective views and models is not outrageous.
But of course if you;re the sort of punter who thinks that all plans are done on the back of an envelope and handed to a builder, this costing will not suit you.
Architects prices are so low because there is way, way too many of them. The low prices will drive many of them out of business or else abroad - mainly the ones who won't roll with current pricing trends, the really bad ones, and the ones who refuse to adapt to current market reality. Only then will the market stabilise. It is simple economics. Ireland needs to shed lots of architects for the future sustainability of the profession. Hacked clean for better bearing, as Thomas Kinsella said.
This discussion was not prompted by architects prices - a straw man argument on your part.
This is prompted by the fee to planning stage included in another posters query on costs - which I estimated at below cost.
Professions are not like dead pieces of timber to be shaped by some wood butcher to suit his short sighted agenda, but living trees, and if you hack off the roots the tree will die.
Professions are like communities, which without a degree of continuity the necessary knowledge and expertise cannot be passed down to the next generation.
The structural damage being done by thsi crisis will seriously mark the architectural profession in Ireland and indeed all professions related to the building industry.
But you know what? That's not our problem.
Not yet, but it will be and you know what - you'll probably be one of the loudest complainers when you see what this current crisis will leave of the profession, the dregs who will work for nothing, churning out terrible designs to blight our cities towns and countryside.
Maybe then you'll wish you'd listen to people with foresight instead of looking to the quick buck to be made in the short term.
The best one that I have heard is the architect who thinks that prices should be artificially bumped up because s/he went to college - "a reward for third-level education".
I stated quite clearly that working for below cost is unsustainable.
Not doing so sets the bottom of the market higher than some would like.
I also commented that people who go to college have expectations of income at a certain level.
Your bland comments suggest you don't know much about this game either, but its fairly simple to explain.
Whilst others are out pursuing their careers from the time they leave school, professionals often spend ten years and more learning.
It is considered reasonable to pay fees at a certain level to remove the financial disadvantage that accrues due to the years in college as well as to reward people for the higher duty of care the take on board.
So did half the rest of us, boss. What do you want? Government price control?
Another straw man argument - I didn't invoke the government.
You don't post like someone who went to college, certainly not someone who achieved a degree after attending a four year plus professional course, and then several years learning professional practice at reduced rates.
If you were a professional you'd understand these issues, but it seems clear that you aren't or you'd never advance the arguments you've promoted here.
You cannot even accurately represent what I posted earlier, which was that fools are rushing to the bottom on fees without any thought for the consequences.
I also posted that below cost selling brings its own rewards and that someone who attained professional competence in the manner described above is simply not going to work for the fee level offered - €500 to design a new house and lodge the planning application - because its not profitable or sustainable to do so.
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What really seemed to get under your skin in the previous thread was that I reminded you that price is set not just by supply and demand, which is the level your argument settled at, but its also set by the lowest point the seller is able to sell for to cover his costs - that didn't seem to sit too well with you...
You seemed to think that people should bow down to market forces regardless of whether they're covering their costs.
No doubt some architects will - for a while.
Then they'll cop on and pretty soon you'll see architects simply refusing to work for that kind of money.
Don't think the Architectural Technicians will rush to fill that gap - below cost selling is not for them!
No one knows more about running an office profitably than a competent architectural technician.
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Others posting independently to this thread have already pointed out the pitfalls of paying such poor fees, but you go right ahead and see what kind of service you get.
Let us know how you get on.
And when you want an expert witness to inspect and write a report on what remedial work needs to be done to your property and attend at court relying on his twenty years post graduate experience to help run the case and offer sworn testimony, don't call me, because I more than likely will be too busy doing other things.
In the meantime, consumers, let's make hay while the sun shines. Don't be put off by people who say to you that it is unfair on poor architects that you have hired a guy at a price that they view as too low. We are not obliged to maintain whatever lifestyles or cost bases they have chosen to have for themselves. These same people wouldn't have thought twice about charging you a high price during the boom, because the market would have allowed them to. Now the market works in our favour. A pendulum swings both ways.
Your comments may be levelled fairly at some - not at me.
I have never charged more than 10% in fees and seldom even achieved that even at the height of the boom.
It seems your argument is so threadbare that you have to resort to exaggeration and unfounded allegations to make your case.
Consumers now have real power when it comes to retaining professional services of all shapes and sizes. Let's use that power, to demand higher quality, as well as lower prices. Let's see how far that envelope can be pushed. The cheapest guy is not always the most shoddy, and the most expensive guy is not always the best quality.
Consumers have always had the power to beggar a profession, but most people have some sort of moral compass, where they are willing to pay a fair days pay for a reasonable service.
While I have never advocated charging through the roof, you have repeatedly made the case for below cost fee payments to architects.
If anyone is running an agenda here, it seems to be you, with your market determination of commodity prices being applied to a professional fees.
The profitability of those professionals is their responsibility, not ours.
If the fees offered are below cost, there is no profitability, no market and therefore no profession.
Despite your trying to cast aspersions on why I give FREE ADVICE here on AAM, I will continue to do so.
I will continue to make the case for paying reasonable fees for competent professional services where appropriate.
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Your attitude towards the professions seems to be short sighted and if you pursue it you could expose yourself to risk.
I've tried to warn you - and it seems several posters to this thread have understood the warning - so I have done what I can.
ONQ.