Get Floor Plans for those Pre-Owned Homes!

This post is in response to Peter Potylicki at Active Rain who wrote about Floor Plans yesterday. He was referring to an ezine What Do National Home Builders Do That The Re-Sale Market Doesn't To Sell Homes? by Pablo Santibanez. Pablo goes on to discuss floor plans offered by builders and how much of an industry standard they are in the new construction arena. By contrast, Pablo says - the floor plan is virtually ignored by Realtors in the secondary home market.
So why are floor plans ignored by Realtors? I'll tell you why. We have no idea where to get them! Sure, if the homeowner has a copy of the floor plan - most Realtors try to include that in the marketing material. I know I do. I have even made an effort to keep a file of floor plans I pick up from new builders so I can use them for marketing future homes. But what if the homeowner has no floor plan? Maybe it's an older home? Maybe no one in the office has a floor plan? Where the heck do you get a floor plan! We'll, it took me more than a few hours sorting through all the links on the web for builders, custom home floor plan creators - but I was able to put together a list of actual floor plan providers.

Floor Plan Providers:

• EZFloorPlan.com - These guys take a hand sketch provided by you and turn it into a floor plan for $29 bucks - if the home is under 2000sf.
• FloorPlanet.com - they partner with virtual tour providers or photographers and teach them how to create floor plans. This just makes sense.
• FloorPlanOnline - wow, this looks like a really cool service. They have interactive floor plans and virtual tours. Floor plans start at just $49.00.
• FloorPlanGraphics.com - definitely higher end and higher priced. In Austin, Texas.
• HomeSight.net- they partner with appraisers who visit the properties and get measurments. Also offering interactive floor plans.
• InsideTract.com - using the floorplanonline.com software, they provide interactive floor plans for California Realtors.
• LaserTechFloorPlans - floor plans for commercial properties.
• NJVTours.com- James Colucci Enterprises. I'm guessing by the name that they are in New Jersey - but for the life of me, I can't find any location info for them on the website.
• RealTourVision.com- a virtual tour provider offering floor plans as an option. Excellent place to get it all done in one place! I found this link through a google search that led to an Active Rain profile.  Thanks to Bob Blandy, an Active Rain member with CambriaVirtualTours.com in Central California and part of the RealTourVision Network.    
• Imagemaker360- a big one here in Chicagoland - offers an interactive floor plan combined with the virtual tour.
• MetroPix.co.uk - for our friends in the UK. They have very reasonable plans that allow an entire office to create unlimited floor plans!
• VHT.com - they can create floor plans from old blueprints.
• CirclePix.com - offers a $60 upgrade to the virtual tour for a floor plan.

Floor Plan Software: You probably don't have time to setup software, sketch properties and create floor plans for every home. But if everyone in an office chipped in - maybe you could buy the software and find someone who would be interested in using the software to make floor plans at a cheap price. Great business idea for someone!

• 2dPlan.com - allows you to create floor plans, add furniture, colors & textures.
• SmartDraw.com - comes in under 200 bucks. Not bad.
• FloorPlanner.com- a great piece of online software. Works on a monthly subscription basis but looks like it would be perfect if you have someone lined up to make floor plans for you. No expensive software to buy!
• Visio by Microsoft- I hate plugging Microsoft! But I used Visio before they bought it and it was a great product. Very easy to use.