Architect Archive
Thread: Going rate for Homes
The exciting part for me being an archetect is exactly that, this is a lot like the combat profesions. Poeple just dont understand that about business yet.
The really funny part, is that if they guy I have been talking to was buying resrouces from me, he could lower his prices by 33% and get the same profit margin. They choose the price to be 3 per, the game does not set it at that, people do.
dayln
what server are u on ?
I hate dealing with mineral mechants who think that they are lowballing at 5-8 CPU
Gilden
Ahazi, Naboo, SW of Keren
You are absolutly correct. If I could lower my costs by 33% I would be willing to lower my prices. I think that applies to everyone here. My point is however it was arrived at the 3cr per price is the reality for most of us. And not some arbitrary number made up to justify gouging the buying public. If anyone can change that reality for me, then I would be overjoyed.
I truly am not in this to to make a huge amount of money. I simply want a fair profit so I can do the things I enjoy in the game, and help the members of my new PA, by supplying them with with affordable housing. I do NOT take a profit from sales to guild members.
I do understand you, and I have really enjoyed this conversation.
Jsut realise that it actually is arbatrary and set by those selling to you. Build1 wind generator, build1 extractor, let it run for 24 hours and do the math. Even at 40% resrouces, the cost per unit is a whole lot less than 1 per unit.
Dayln wrote:Right now I am totally booked on resources and items for about a couple of weeks or more. At the moment more customers is not that I need, what I need is another partner, but most of them are too greedy to join us
I've been enjoying reading your discount price posts this morning, they seem to be popping up everywhere
I fully support you in your comments regarding this being not only a free market, but an economic battlefield heh. That being said I am curious about the terms of victory in this battle. Is the objective to move more units than anyone else, to amass a bigger bank account than anyone else, or to do the former to drive others from the market allowing you to do the latter? Sorry to hear you are so backlogged on your orders though, I know the customers I deal with tend to expect delivery with a few hours or a day at most, I can't imagine what your tells and emails must be like with a week or longer backlog Tued the Master Builder
Well for me it is a customer baseas the victory that still includes a healthy profit margin.
If house decay is not implemented then the entire housing market will fall though the bottom shortly, very few people will be buying. I want to make sure that a large number of people know where they can go for good prices.If I can stay in this business after the bottom falls out, then I will consider myself sucuessful.
The goal is a long term business, not large profits this week, but solid profits in the long haul.
Sam Walton.... er I mean.... Dayln
3cr/unit is pretty average around the galaxy (why its that price is irrelevant, thats just what it is). Anyone selling them for less than that gets a good run of business because most of the people that buy for less than 3cr/unit simply turn around and resell the same thing for 3cr/unit+. And for people selling ANY resource <3cr a unit, people who are paying attention to the quality can turn around and sell the same block of resource for 4,5, or 10cr a unit.
Same thing goes with the structures. There is a post on Naritus of a Novice arch selling medium houses for 30k. Even though Im a master arch and could build them myself, I will buy any medium house for 30k and resell it at a sane price. Sheesh for 30k, i can go and resell them for 60k (which is still cheap imo) and my customers will buy them up like hotcakes for that price. On the ruthless business side of things, I am forcing the arch selling at 30k to up their prices or go under, because after 1 fail on the final combine, they are losing money. Even moreso is the case on larger items. If I can buy anything large at 3cr/unit, that is a profit for me. I assume no risk on the build and therefore have no chance of losing 40k of resources in one shot.
Sure you can get lucky for a while and never have a big crit fail, but when you arent making a profit realtive to to the average market price of resources, then when you do have a big fail, you end up with a customer that isnt receiving their order on time, and you likely will not have enough resources on hand to just throw another one together. My prices allow me a percentage of crit failures, and even if I dont have enough resources left to go again, I can call a supplier and get a rush order of ore, pay top dollar for them if I need to, rebuild, and still at least break even. Customer will still get their order on time.
There was a good thread here somewhere, I think Zooto mentioned it, about hiring on apprentices. What a great idea. I just hired one on myself, and he is building walls for me at 6k each. I provide him with the harvesters till he can build his own, he gets the building experience, makes a decent profit without having to undercut market prices, and I get more walls every day to build the big stuff. As he gains more experience, I will just continue to commission to him the things he can build, or refer peoples' requests directly to him. And when he makes master, thats a little more competition for me, which I welcome. There are at least 3 Master Archs within 5k meters from me, and we all seem to havea good customer base and a solid steady business. I doubt we have the same exact prices, we have never disucessed it or tried to fix prices or anything, but judging by the number of structure factories I see around, it is safe to say we are all doing a decent business. And yes, this is still with some archs selling medium housesfor 30k. Funny, I never see the 30k advertisements on the boards from the same person more than once.
Anyway, if you made it this far, to answer the question, heres my prices:
Small House - See a Novice Arch and give him the xp
Medium - 100-125k
Large - 175-200k
Discounts on bulk orders and regular customers.
I understand that most people sell for 3cr per unit which is over 500% profit margin. That does not mean I have too. Just because someone else gouges customers does not force me too
I know for a fact that some of my units are re-sold, that does not bother me in the least. because I am still building a customer base even as a wholeseller, and I still sell to customers direct.
For me, customer base is the key. You have other goals and I am not putting you down at all. You arent wrong, but niether am I.Long term, I believe my business will hold, evenwhen the market drops.
Good question, I have no idea, totally different ball game.
One of my partners is making his way up the weaponsmith tree now and we will see. Dificult resrouces to find, lots of expermentation required to make good products, often tied to the market resrouce cost for rare materials.
it would certainly be higher than what i see buildings for.
Buildings are different, bulk resrouces, nomne of them rare, plopsome down at only 40% resource level and make a tidy profit underselling just about everyone else.
However I can say one thing, I would do my best to make sure my customers felt like they were getting a very good value for a high quality product.
I agree with you 100% that a good customer base is the key. A good customer will also know that a harvester or factory will pay for itself in less than a week, even if purchased at 5-6cr a unit. They also know that once they have 10 lots worth, they never have to buy another one again. During the course of the game, they could easily spend 500k credits on weapons, since they decay and need to be re-purchased, but the large house they paid 200k for will stay as good as it always was.
My customers depend on me for a delivered product at a fast turnaround. If everyone were willing to wait a week on their orders, sure I could drop my prices a lot, but most people want things same day, and even on a bad crit fail day, I have yet to miss a promised delivery.
It was wrong for me to say that archs selling things for significantly less will put them out of business. This will not always be the case. It will just take a lot more work to keep the business afloat, especially after some big crit fails. I would say that how you price your structures will affect how much time you spend on architect work, and as much as I do like being an architect, my prices allow me to have time to explore other areas of the game more. Its just not as much of a struggle to keep my primary business going. I charge what I believe is fair, I never stress about a resource shortage or a crit fail, and I can turn around several large orders in a short amount of time. But you are correct that this is not the only viable business model that an arch can have, nor is it the best one. If there were only 1 good business model for archs, we wouldnt be having these discussions anyway.
(and I think they are good discussions btw, anyone that gets pissed about what other people do is really just worrying too much about other people)
Yes.. while lately some of my customers have had to wait up to a week for a delivery ( I do deliver BTW )
I honestly beieve there is room in the current market for both of us for now, but I dont expect that to be true a year from now. But hey, by then I might get bored with this and go anoy all the Weapon crafters 
T21 Rifles $5000 ( chuckle ) I can hear them screaming now.
Holy COW.
I pay $105k for my larges, $45k for my mediums, and$8k for my smalls- and the architect is STILL making profit. He's got reams of resources at his disposal, and does a lot of business because of his prices. Averages on my server are $150k large, $60k medium, and $10k small - but only fools would pay it when there are deals around to be had.
Some of those people buying from you guys are getting HOSED. Oh well, it's their own fault, I suppose - if they LET you take them, then hey ... take 'em ~J