Architext #1309: POOL HOUSES – Go Figure!

In addition to traditional architectural services, my firm offers a line of our own stock house plans online. Not surprisingly, over the last several months, online house plan sales have remained soft as this economy struggles to find its legs.   FreestonePlans.com receives new visitors daily and many contacts, but I’ve noticed that most are looking for our smaller house and building designs.  Surprisingly, our website's Pool House pages are by far the most hit upon! And the top search words used to reach our site are “pool houses”, “cabanas” and  “carriage houses”.

I’m not quite sure what that says.   Perhaps it’s tied to the many reports that indicate that homeowners are not buying new or building, instead choosing to improve what they’ve already got.   Part of that thrust includes site improvements like decks,  pool and accessory buildings such as pool houses.   I’m not sure exactly why it is, but the analytics are pretty clear on what visitors are looking at (at least when they visit our site).  And to further add to this picture, this is not a regional phenomena.  The majority of hits from around the country are searching for these same building types.

All in all, this is probably not a bad thing.  It indicates that consumers are beginning to spend on bigger ticket items, just not yet on the biggest ticket items that we in the housing industry thrive on!

Dom Narducci is a practicing architect in Southbury, CT.  He provides complete architectural design and project management services (Freestone-inc.com) and offers a line of stock house plans (FreestonePlans.com). Additionally, Narducci teaches and writes on design and construction issues. Comments are welcome. If you have a question for Ask the Architect!, contact Dom at: dnarducci@freestone-inc.com.