All posts by Fabian Doe

Free floor plan

Draw Plan

Chapter 1: Welcome to archiplain – Your Free Online Floor Planning Solution For Free Floor Plan

Are you seeking an intuitive and hassle-free way to create floor plans effortlessly? Look no further than archiplain. Our platform offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process of designing floor plans without the need for complex software installations.

Chapter 2: Ease of Use and Accessibility

Archiplain prides itself on its accessibility and ease of use. Whether you’re an architecture novice or a seasoned professional, our platform is tailored to accommodate users of all skill levels. You can access the tools and features directly through your web browser, eliminating the need for software downloads.

Chapter 3: No Design or IT Expertise Required

One of the standout features of archiplain is its simplicity. You don’t need any prior design or IT experience to create stunning floor plans. Our editor is designed to be straightforward and precise, ensuring that anyone can start crafting their plans immediately upon accessing our website.

Chapter 4: Versatile Design Capabilities

With archiplain, you have the freedom to unleash your creativity. You can start from scratch or utilize existing drafts and drawings provided by architects. Our platform allows you to add various elements such as rooms, walls, doors, windows, and staircases effortlessly.

Chapter 5: Customization and Precision

Tailoring your floor plan to your specific needs is a breeze with archiplain. Adjust wall thickness to match the materials you plan to use, and change the color of each element with ease. Imagine coloring your water-centric areas like bathrooms and kitchens in serene blue hues or infusing your bedrooms with bold reds—all achievable within our intuitive editor.

Chapter 6: Collaborative Capabilities and Sharing Options

Archiplain facilitates collaboration by allowing you to share your designs with others. Whether it’s for feedback, teamwork, or client presentations, our platform provides seamless sharing options, enhancing the collaborative aspect of your architectural projects.

Free Floor plan
Free floor plan
Chapter 7: Library of items

When you have made your plan, you can add items to furnish and decorate. Our library contains many objects that you can install in your free floor plan thanks to our drag & drop interface.

Chapter 8: Furniture for each room


You can install furniture such as office, room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom and living room furniture.

Examples of furniture
Examples of furniture
Chapter 9: Outdoor objects


Then, you install outdoor objects such as those of garages, trees, plants, or swimming pools.

Examples of outdoor objects
Examples of outdoor objects
Chapter 10: Heater and symbols


In addition, you install heaters and many symbols such as electricity, safety and compass.

Examples of heater and symbols
Examples of heater and symbols

Chapter 11: Additional tools

Finally, you have many tools that allow you to perfect your plan.

You can make up to 3 plans for free. But if you want one or two more plans for free, surprise, it may be possible … with our Free plan.

Free plan
Free plan


Conclusion: Elevate Your Architectural Design Experience with ArchiPlain’s Premium Features

If you’re looking to take your architectural designs to the next level, ArchiPlain offers an affordable premium version packed with additional functionalities. This premium upgrade empowers users to delve deeper into the world of floor planning, enabling a range of advanced features catering to professionals and enthusiasts alike.

Unlock Enhanced Capabilities

By opting for the premium version, you gain access to an array of advanced tools that elevate your design process. Create accurate quotes and utilize a rangefinder to ensure precise measurements, essential for any architectural project. Generate high-definition pictures to visualize your designs in detail, and export your floor plans in PDF format to scale for presentations and printing purposes.

Seamless Integration and Export Options

With ArchiPlain’s premium version, compatibility and flexibility are at your fingertips. Utilize the DXF export feature to seamlessly integrate your floor plans with other architectural software or share them with collaborators. This interoperability streamlines your workflow and enhances collaboration among team members or clients.

Affordable and Comprehensive Solution

ArchiPlain’s premium version is designed to offer an extensive suite of tools at an affordable price point. Experience the convenience of premium features without breaking the bank, ensuring that both professionals and enthusiasts can access advanced functionalities without significant financial investment.

Elevate Your Architectural Projects Today

In conclusion, ArchiPlain’s premium version extends beyond basic floor planning, providing a comprehensive suite of tools tailored to meet the needs of architects, designers, and individuals passionate about architectural endeavors. Upgrade today to unlock a world of enhanced capabilities and streamline your architectural design process effortlessly.

Premium plan
Premium plan

Best free open software for windows

Draw Plan

You are using archiplain, or not yet. This is probably partly because it is one of the best free and open software for windows software. You’re like me, you like using free software before you consider paying anything for more advanced features. And it is annoying, when you are looking for software among the best free open software for windows, you often have non-functional software, or a little free and much paid, or with a lot of advertisements. Please note, most of the software offered is open software but this is not the case for all. We preferred to offer you a wide enough range of software to be as complete as possible.

What you’ll see now is a list of some of the best software in the world, the best free software! And you can do what you want with these software.

Anti-virus


ClamWin
It is written in C ++ and Python. It replaces all antiviruses like Norton AntiVirus or McAfee. It’s free software. If you don’t like this antivirus, we can also offer you Avira. Attention, by searching on Google, it is easier to find the paid version of Avira, but there is indeed a free version.


Photo by Ariel da Silva Parreira from FreeImages – best free open software for windows


Floor plan


Archiplain
Probably one of the best software on the market for best free floor plan software. No easy access to the source code but ease of use and a very interesting free version.

Photo by Fabian Doe from archiplain – best free open software for windows

Browser



Firefox
If you’re tired of using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Hedge, which is often installed on computers, you can replace it with Firefox. This browser is very user-friendly. Don’t forget to program your computer to launch Firefox by default!

Google Chrome
One of the very many products from Google that works very well. Please note, some video conferencing software only works with Chrome!


Photo by Philippe Ramakers from FreeImages – best free open software for windows



Podcast



Juice
You can organize your podcasts and listen to them easily. It replaces iTunes. You can also try gPodder.

Word processor



LibreOffice
Or OpenOffice, it’s kind of the same thing. In this office suite you have all the tools of the Microsoft suite, word processor, spreadsheet, presentation of slides, etc.

Abiword
If you are tired of Microsoft Word, you can replace it with this software. Very practical because it can read Word .doc and .docx files. The office suite is light, it doesn’t take up too much space on your hard drive.



Video conference



Jitsi
This software is open source. There is no need to install a program. We also like: BigBlueButton, OpenMeetings and VROOM.

Zoom
Widely used by many people, especially since the coronavirus crisis. A few privacy criticisms, but that will work out.

Skype
The best known and the oldest. It was created and developed in 2003 by those who created KaZaA. Just download it and start a conversation by sending a link to your colleagues by email.

Note taking



Turtle
It allows you to take notes and manage images, passwords and bookmarks. If you don’t want it, choose from: Keynote, Joplin or Laverna.



Image editing



GIMP
It is essential and can replace the essential Adobe Photoshop. We can also choose paint.net and Pixlr.



Media Player



VLC Media Player
The most obvious and the best. Allows you to read everything, in particular files, disks, webcams, peripherals and rss feeds. This software replaces RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and Quicktime.

Webmail



Thunderbird
A very good product that is fast, complete. It allows you to manage emails.

Apple mail
It’s the same as Thunderbird, a webmail. It is dedicated to Apple products.

RSS readers



QuiteRSS
Allows you to aggregate news feeds from different blogs in one place. Like this, you read a single blog on the topics that interest you. Other solutions exist: FeedReader, Newsbeuter and Liferea.



Exploring planets



WorldWind
Not as powerful as Google Earth but allows you to replace it. It provides political, weather, topological and satellite imagery. It also makes it possible to make landscape representations in 3D.

Downloading files



Free Download Manager
It is free and open source. It allows you to download movies and DVDs. We also like Motrix, JDownloader, and uGet.

In order to help you choose well, we have prepared the list of the 10 best free open software for windows.

When it comes to finding the best free open-source software for Windows, there are many options available. Open-source software is software that is freely available to use, modify, and distribute, making it a great option for those looking to save money while still getting access to high-quality software. In this article, we will discuss some of the best free open-source software options for Windows.

  1. LibreOffice – This is a free, open-source office suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software, making it a great alternative to Microsoft Office. It is also available in many languages and can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  2. GIMP – This is a free, open-source image editing software that is similar to Adobe Photoshop. It offers a wide range of tools for editing and retouching images, including layer support and advanced color management. It is also available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  3. ·  VLC Media Player – This is a free, open-source media player that can play a wide variety of video and audio formats. It is also able to play DVDs and streaming protocols, making it a versatile option for media playback. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  4. ·  Audacity – This is a free, open-source audio editing software that is great for recording, editing, and exporting audio. It includes a wide range of tools for editing and processing audio, as well as support for a variety of audio formats. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  5. ·  Firefox – This is a free, open-source web browser that is fast, secure, and customizable. It includes a wide range of features such as a built-in password manager, VPN, and tracking protection. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  6. ·  Thunderbird – This is a free, open-source email client that is compatible with most email services. It includes a wide range of features such as a built-in calendar, spam filter, and support for multiple email accounts. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  7. ·  Blender – This is a free, open-source 3D animation software that is widely used in the film and game industries. It includes a wide range of tools for modeling, animation, and rendering, as well as support for a variety of file formats. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  8. ·  Inkscape – This is a free, open-source vector graphics software that is similar to Adobe Illustrator. It includes a wide range of tools for creating and editing vector graphics, as well as support for a variety of file formats. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  9. ·  Notepad++ – This is a free, open-source text editor that is great for coding and scripting. It includes a wide range of features such as syntax highlighting, code folding, and support for a variety of programming languages. It is available for Windows.
  10. ·  7-Zip – This is a free, open-source file archiving software that is great for compressing and decompressing files. It supports a wide variety of file formats and includes a built-in file manager. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

All of the software listed above are considered as the best free open-source software for Windows, based on their popularity, user reviews, and expert opinion. They are reliable and can be used for various purposes, from office works, editing images, playing media, emailing, 3D animation, vector graphics, coding, and file archiving.

More:

10 free software of video conference

Best free floor plan software

6 ideas to better reference your real estate website

Draw Plan

Finding a place on Google search is a goal that all web designers are looking for, especially for real estate. Better yet, being on the first page, or first link, is the assurance of having traffic to your real estate website. The problem is that big real estate sites like https://www.zillow.com/ can afford to have full-time SEO to do this job. They can also pay to have advertisements.

Photo by Alexander Kalina from freeimages

We have already offered you an article in which we explain how to improve your website with your SEO: here.

So what can you do when you are not yourself a professional SEO? Rest assured, we can do a very good SEO for a real estate site without having all the necessary diplomas.
Know that the most important thing is to have a SEO strategy. And for that, you have to know the right keywords. And you have to know your competitors.
Let’s look at these 6 ideas together to improve your real estate SEO.

1. Long-term SEO for real estate website

To do this, you must first:
– Identify your competitors on the web
– Analyze their real estate website using different tools:

  • ads.google.com
  • trends.google trends
  • alexa.com
  • SEMrush.com

Make a list of the keywords most relevant to your real estate activity. The most frequent words will not necessarily be the most interesting, such as “real estate” or “property”. You have to do long-term SEO, for example using keywords rarely used by competitors in niche markets, or keywords very often used to derive part of their traffic, or put keywords in connection with real estate but containing spelling mistakes, or fashionable subjects. Do not hesitate to make texts long enough with its keywords, if possible with the keywords at the beginning of the text. Indeed, Google likes keywords in the beginning of the text, long texts, time spent on a page and bounce rate (if the person spends little time on the page and then leaves the site, this means say that the site is not interesting).

Photo by John Byer from freeimages

2. Regularly update articles and eliminate outdated information

This is very important for Google because it shows that you regularly rework your articles to update them3. Consolidate the place of your keywords without trying to find other keywords

Do a research to see the place of your keys. If you have relatively well-placed keywords, it is better to consolidate their place than to seek to place new keywords. In addition, these well-placed keywords can lose places if you do nothing.

Photo by L. Emerson from freeimages

4. Be alert to changes to your site

If you want to change the theme or update the PHP language, this changes the characteristics of your site, in particular the loading time of your pages, which is good. But it can create a malfunction that can lower your SEO.
On the other hand, Google is very sensitive to the responsive characteristics of your real estate website. This means that the pages of your site must adapt to small screens, such as those of tablets and smartphones. If you choose wordpress to design your site, this function is naturally present.

Photo by John Boyer from freeimages

5. Request the creation of links from important websites to your real estate website

We start from a simple principle: if your real estate website is interesting, then many websites with an interest in your site will link to your website. It’s important that these websites have equally interesting content and traffic to generate interest in Google. You will therefore have to call many webmasters to ask them to link to your site. Please note, more and more websites are using the “no follow” function which tell Google not to follow these links.

6. Referencing the images of your site

Images are very important for a real estate website because they constitute a first approach to interest potential buyers. Indeed, it is the images before the text that make you want to buy real estate. But they have a major drawback: they are not referenced by Google. We must therefore put text in the attributes of the image, and if possible put keywords in these attributes.

There you have good ideas for referencing your real estate website. There are many other techniques to perform this referencing, in particular the link with social networks, blogs, tools managing comments. We will be sure to come back to this article to update it regularly.

10 free software of video conference

Draw Plan

We have been predicting the advent of video conference for a long time.
You should know that the transport of employees of companies is quite expensive. You have to pay for the transport itself, often by plane but also by train or rental car for shorter distances. However, you also have to pay for accommodation, catering and travel to the meeting place.

Photo by Gabriella Fabbri from freeimages

The video conference is very interesting because it saves all these costs. Obviously, there are often costs associated with this type of software. .

Photo by Gabriella Fabbri from freeimages

This is why we offer you a list of 10 free software to allow you to make these video conferences. Please note, in some cases, there is a free version and a paid version as archiplain.

List of free video conference software

Skype – You can make video conferences up to 50 people in free version on smartphones, tablets or PC.

Skype website: CLICK HERE

Whatsapp – Free regardless of the number of users. Usable especially on Smartphone.

Whatsapp website: CLICK HERE

Zoom – The application is free up to 100 people but the duration of the video conference does not last more than 40 minutes.

Zoom website: CLICK HERE

Hangouts meet – This service was to be removed from October 2019 but it is maintained until 2020 and free until July 01, 2020.

Hangouts meet website: CLICK HERE

Google Duo – It should soon replace Hangouts meet. It allows calls to two.

Google Duo website: CLICK HERE

Face time – Video conference application developed by Apple. You can use this service only on Iphone, Ipad and Mac.

Face time website: CLICK HERE

Instagram – This app belongs to facebook.

Instagram website: CLICK HERE

Marco polo – This application is available on the App Store and Google Play.

Marco polo website: CLICK HERE

Anymeeting – Video conference is free for up to 4 people.

Anymeeting website: CLICK HERE

Facebook Messenger – This feature allows you to have a discussion with a group by video.

Facebook Messenger website: CLICK HERE

Photo by Andrzej Pobiedzinski from freeimages

INFORMATION: in 2020, a global epidemic, also called a pandemic, occurred. The offending virus is a coronavirus which is called here COVID-19. For all those who are in a confined situation, we ask you to propagate this list of free video conference applications. Video conferencing is a very good way to continue working so as not to jeopardize the global economy while having a protective attitude towards friends and family and colleagues. Once the crisis is over, continue to use these tools because another pandemic is still possible, such as the Spanish flu. This flu raged from January 1918 to December 1920, affected 500 million people and killed tens of millions of people.

More:

Best free open software for windows

If you need to improve your website, design your SEO first.

Draw Plan

Developing or changing your website can be a major act in professional life. And for that, you have to be good at SEO. It’s like buying a house: do I buy it empty or already equipped with home automation? But you can’t put home automation in half, you have to do it completely, and install:

  • home automation box
  • smart thermostat
  • connected lighting
  • electrical connected sockets
  • automatic shutters
  • connected smoke detector
  • energy consumption sensor
  • motion detector
  • weather station
  • vacuum cleaner
  • refrigerators
  • washing machines

The same goes for a new website. We do this work regularly at archiplain.

Photo by luisosorio from freeimages

For your professional or personal site, you have to do it the same way.

You have to design your SEO compatible website.

This site should include features that will allow you to attract qualified traffic related to the products you offer.

SEO is therefore an essential tool in your desire to increase the web traffic that goes to your website.

Why use SEO for this?

In reality, all businesses use web marketers to improve the visibility of their web pages.

What are the reasons ?

For two main reasons. First, the vast majority of Internet users, over 90%, begin their investigations with a search on a search engine. And a sizeable majority trust a natural result more than an advertisement.

It is therefore necessary to be present on the search engines. Without them, we do not exist on the web.

What are the relevant search engines?

The idea is not to waste time in this natural referencing. From the moment Google is the most used search engine in the world. There is no need to spend time being listed on other search engines like Bing or Qwant. It is therefore a priority to be present on Google’s search pages.


How does SEO work?

First you have to understand how the Google search engine works. This is powerful software that navigates the web from clickable link to clickable link. Once inside a page, he puts it in some sort of library. When a user does a search on Google, the software does not search the results on the web. It does it in this library.

There are therefore two important things for SEO:

  • Pages of the website must be visited by this Google software
  • Ranking in the library must be done with a highest ranking possible
photo by luisosorio from freeimages

Indexing and SEO are therefore also important for your website. It means that there must be clickable links that point to the pages of your site. In addition, the content of your pages must be sufficiently interesting. Consequently you have a high ranking, with elements like a blog or relevant keywords.


SEO strategy


When designing your website, you need to think about implementing an SEO strategy.
Some things to think about regarding your desire to position your site in the first pages of Google:
Is your product local or national, even international? It changes everything. Indeed, what is the use of being listed in New York if your product is only available in San Francisco?
Is your SEO qualified? Indeed, it is not the same thing if only one person buys your product out of 1000 people who have visited the site, or if it is one in two people.
Qualifying your SEO will allow you to consider switching to paid or non-paid SEO (SEA versus SEO)

photo by Svilen Milev from freeimages


Be careful, paying $ 1000 for 1000 clicks and having a single buyer who pays for a product at $ 50 is $ 950 loss. It is better to sell more expensive products that exceed this cost of $ 1000, or to target SEO a lot more: $ 2 for two clicks and a sale at $ 50, it is much more interesting.


How to encourage Google to properly reference your site?


It is not easy because today there are more than 200 criteria in natural referencing. And the competition is doing the same thing as you. Imagine that you have managed to have a well-referenced TAG, for example the “New York real estate” TAG. When people type this expression, your site arrives on the first page of Google. Competitors can see that your site is on the first page with this expression. So they can include that phrase on the pages of their site, or they can buy that phrase from Google. Thus, each time a user types the expression “New York real estate”, an ad will appear on the Google page. It will divert a part of the customer base to them.


There is no ideal solution for your site. Either you decide to completely redo your site to integrate an SEO strategy, or you modify it in depth. In any case, if your website is poorly referenced, it must be changed in depth.
And don’t forget one thing: asking a service provider to redesign a website does not give you any guarantee that your website will be better referenced. I know of websites which are very well referenced, which have a lot of traffic, and which have been entirely made by their owner.


What are the essential elements for a good SEO strategy for your website?


Target your customers: If you sell real estate in Paterson or Clifton near New York, there is little point in describing it with words like “real estate” or “New York real estate”. It is better to describe your advertisements with the expressions “Paterson real estate” or “Clifton real estate”.

Photo by Svilen Milev from freeimages

Be more flexible in the structure of your website. Thus, you can evolve it according to the different evolutionary strategies.
Be more rigorous in the constitution of your site: avoid pages that are too heavy, too aggressive with advertisements
Think about the general structure of your site, so that users don’t get lost, and think about links to social networks.
Think that your site must be mobile friendly, it must adapt to small screens. If you don’t know how to do it, know that WordPress is a mobile friendly website editor.


How to create your merchant website?


Customer identification

This is the first and probably the most important step. Know that the Japanese, when they want to design and sell a new product, first do a study of the market of the client country to know as much as possible these inhabitants and adapt its future product to this new market. It may happen that the Japanese manufacture a product perfectly suited to the USA and not at all to Japan.
These clients can be local, international, rich, poor, male, female, etc … Depending on the typology of the clients, SEO will adapt.


Create the site structure


For example, you can draw blocks on a sheet of paper to represent the skeleton of the site. Then you create pages, for example product pages. Do not forget the regulatory pages as the legal notices.


Create a blog


This is a place where you can write articles, news, which may interest your customers. The more interesting these articles are considered by your customers, the longer they will remain on your site, and they will transfer the link from the page to acquaintances. All this will increase the SEO of your site.


Introduced key elements of SEO
  • Introduce relevant keywords so that people find your site
  • Create HTML tags (code present in the pages but not necessarily visible by Internet users)
  • Make meta descriptions

Introduce relevant titles


Make meaningful URLs: we prefer a URL like: http://website.com/realestateillinois rather than a URL that contains a succession of numbers.



Mobile friendly


Create your site with WordPress or ask the person who made the site to make it mobile friendly. This will prevent smartphone users from viewing your site in lowercase characters.


Page size


It is considered that it makes pages of at least 1000 words so that they are properly referenced.


Differentiate from the competition


This means making competitors differently while being well referenced by your future customers.
An example: do not try to systematically correct spelling or grammatical errors in your texts. Indeed, if only 1% of people write “house” in the following way: “ouse”, this 1% of people will find your site easily.


Distribution of articles and pages


Install clickable buttons on your site that allow you to send summaries of these articles and pages to social media, which in turn can generate traffic, especially if the one who posted the article has a lot of followers.


In conclusion, there is no ideal website SEO strategy. Be aware, however, that you should not give up too quickly: Google likes sites that are older!

Owning residential real estate, a good idea?

Draw Plan

Everyone will tell you: owning residential real estate is a good thing.

We could make the comparison between renting a property and buying it. Many websites have already written many articles on this subject. It is therefore not relevant on our part. First, because it is very complex as a comparison. Here are some examples of this complexity:

  • Long-term bank interest rates, 20 or 30 years.
  • Your remuneration over the long term.
  • Value of your property in the long term.

In summary, it is the word “difficulty” that comes up every time and the expression “in the long term”. So all the websites that make predictions potentially make false predictions. So, it is difficult to know if owning residential real estate is a good thing.

So what can we bring from archiplain again?

We are talking about the long term. So let’s assess the possibilities for change in the long term.
Bank interest rates can be very high in the event of renewed inflation. It can be very low in the event of an economic depression. Can we say that there is never a recession? The examples of the past demonstrate the opposite: the 2008 crisis.

Your remuneration over the long term

There is a fundamental trend of change in the paradigm of the economy. it is called the uberization of the economy. This expression comes from the company Uber which employs mainly freelancers). Because of uberization, people’s wages are no longer fixed as before. It is therefore uncertain to calculate interest rates on the basis of unstable remuneration.

The value of a property

It can also vary over the long term:

  • fragility of the materials used
  • declaration of a new flood zone
  • presence of a problem nuclear power plant in the vicinity
  • presence of termites

How to counter all this: simple, be rich !!! So, you can have properties in several different places. You can call on many specialists in natural and artificial risks. You can go to several different countries to increase the tax risk, …

More seriously, you must consider buying a real estate as a very serious project that requires a lot of work. For example, if you fear flooding, built on a hill, at the top, you may have lightning, but no flood.

Related articles:

The 12 best real estate websites for selling a property

Draw Plan

This list is subjective but it will allow you to find sites that offer houses or apartments for sale. So, you want to know what are the 12 best real estate websites?


Here is this list:
  • Realtor.com
  • Zillow
  • Facebook
  • Century 21
  • RE / MAX
  • Homes.com
  • Redfin
  • HomeFinder
  • Craigslist
  • Coldwell Banker Realtors
  • MLS
  • Trulia

Yes, these links of the 12 best real estate websites are not clickable but you can easily find the sites by typing these names on Google.

House plan to give to one of the 12 best real estate websites
House plan to give to one of the 12 best real estate websites

Of course, this list is intentionally subjective. Its purpose is to give ideas to people who want to buy a property.
If you feel that your website should be present on this list, do not hesitate to give me your contact details and the reasons for being present.

Property on a website and for real

Once you’ve chosen a list of preferences, remember the following: A property for sale on a website is not always exactly the same when you visit it. It is necessary to choose the most critical moments: at night, at dawn, at dusk, on a windy, rainy day, at the time of an intense traffic of cars, etc …

Also remember that the images on websites are often enhanced by tools like Photoshop or Gimp.

Last thing: even if everyone tells you that this house is not for you, the only person who will pay for this house is you! And your personal tastes are not necessarily those of others. The only criterion that matters is: do you feel good in this house?

More:

Property hunter, a profession for the future

Draw Plan

Finding an ideal house, negotiating the price, negotiating a loan with one bank or another, often represents an insurmountable barrier for a certain number of people. This can lead to people never buying a property. The best is to find a property hunter.

There is, however, a fairly practical solution.

When you buy a house through a real estate agency, you have to pay agency fees, which is normal. This allows the real estate agent to incur costs to sell this house: advertising, advertisements on specialized sites, numerous visits, work with the notary. But we know less that by paying the same fees, we can ask the real estate agent to look for this house for us.

There are many advantages to this:

  • The real estate agent can help you define the best criteria for the property you want to buy.
  • The real estate agent can look for properties that are not necessarily for sale. Indeed, it happens that the visit of a property by an agent can trigger the owner to want to sell the property.
  • The real estate agent can save you from the classic pitfalls (noisy place, poor workmanship, …).
  • Search for a property when you don’t live in the country
  • Experience and market knowledge make the real estate agent much more efficient than the buyer himself
  • The real estate agent knows how to negotiate better
  • The buyer saves a lot of time by visiting only the properties negotiated by the real estate agent

This relatively unknown activity of property hunter should develop greatly because it has many advantages. We may even be surprised that so few people use this way of having a property. Indeed, one can visit goods oneself and in parallel, call upon the services of a property hunter.

More:

How to properly write a real estate ad?

Draw Plan

More and more people are looking for real estate listings on the Internet. And the question is: how to properly write a real estate ad? First because it’s easier than looking for real estate agencies in town. On the other hand, you can select the property you want based on many criteria. Finally, this avoids at first the excessive pressure from the real estate agent who absolutely wants to sell you the house he has in mandate.

As a result, it is therefore advisable to write your real estate ad as best as possible so that it can be located in the midst of thousands of other ads. So, how to properly write a real estate ad?

Things people are looking for first

What are the things people are looking for first? For you, we have selected a few criteria that will allow you to stand out from other ads:

  • Put pictures. If possible, hire a photographer.
  • Create a YouTube channel with videos of your home and a link in your ad
  • Give as much detail as possible to the description of your property. Search engines are based on keywords. I know a person who searches for objects on ad sites, who buys them, and who resells them more expensive on the same sites by making a much more detailed ad.
  • Place your advertisement on the most sites of announcements of real estate sales, free and paying. Attention, always put the same sale price on these ads. As a result, people compare sites and don’t understand when there are price variations.
  • Update your ad regularly. In other words, real estate sites often top the most recent listings.
  • Apply your advertisement on traditional supports: local newspaper, advertisement in supermarket, in your school, work.
  • Offer the fairest price corresponding to the real estate market in your neighborhood. Too low a price and you will lose money. A price too high and you will have to lower the price later, which worries potential buyers.

If you follow these tips, you should have more opportunities to sell your property.

And the future

In conclusion, we will update this post regularly to give you more and more sales advice. Therefore, don’t hesitate to bookmark this page in your browser, Firefox, Chrome or Hedge.

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Sell your property in real estate agency or not?

Draw Plan

Sell your property by real estate agents, good question, difficult answer.

If the question had been asked in 2000, the answer was simple: of course, in an agency. But since then there has been the Internet revolution, and things are much more complicated.

Statistics

According to statistics in 2018 (National Association of Realtors), sales are made via:

  1. Internet: 50%
  2. Real estate agent: 28%
  3. Yard sign / open house sign: 7%
  4. Friend, relative or neighbor: 7%
  5. Home builder or their agent: 5%
  6. Directly from sellers / Knew the sellers: 2%
  7. Print newspaper advertisement: 1%

This means that 50% of Internet sales did not exist before 2000. Note that Internet sales only represent 50%, while this value is certainly higher. Indeed, one can think that the real estate agents practically all have an Internet site which offer the goods for sale. Internet sales are therefore probably closer to 80%.

Sell your property

Note that the Print newspaper advertisements are very low, 1%. This is undoubtedly due to the very large presence of real estate agencies on this type of media, which scares away individuals who would like to sell their property.

Finally, the statistical analysis does not say the crossed percentages. Indeed, we rarely watch the same ad in a single media.

Sales by real estate agents

Let’s look specifically at sales by real estate agents. First, they communicate about goods for sale in different ways: advertisements in newspapers, in the Internet media, posters in front of the agency.
On the Internet, they are in competition with other agencies that offer the same property for sale (beware of the different prices for the same property, that is not serious). In the newspapers, we know that few sales take place. Finally, the poster in front of the agency is much more important than we think.

Let’s take the problem differently, say for the buyer. Do you think a buyer decides to buy a property solely for financial or aesthetic reasons? It’s wrong. Sell your property can be a dilemma.

House and surroudings

In reality, the buyer is buying a house and its surroundings. In a significant number of cases, the buyer will want to buy a house that is close to shops, close to the bus stop or the highway to go to work, close to his children’s school. He will therefore choose a house preferably in a certain environment. If he chooses a city that suits him, he will look on the Internet for ads that correspond to this city (which is not always indicated precisely in the ads) then he will go to that city to look for ads in real estate agencies.

For a few years, real estate agencies thought that shops in town were doomed: overpriced rents, the need for frequent human presence in the agency. Internet networks without shops have developed much more. We are now witnessing an upsurge in the attraction of shops in town for much more human relationships and professionalism.

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Trends in architecture

Draw Plan

For many years now, we have seen architectural trends emerge. This can explain by the increasingly important urbanization, the disaffection of large industrial sites and the need of people to live in original spaces.

We will present some trends that we find frequently:

Home automation and smart home


More and more people are using home automation to make their homes more comfortable. We can cite the systems that allow to open the shutters, to put heating, lights, and many others.


More and more people are trying to buy old industrial buildings or have housing built by imitating these buildings. There are inexpensive materials like iron or wood.

Open spaces


The trend is to remove the partitions to enlarge the space. We will even find spaces without any partitions, except a very small one for the bathroom.

Kitchen and bathroom


The first becomes a real reception hall in which you receive your friends, the second wants to look more and more like the Roman baths with their size and their different temperatures.


We no longer want houses that have a very high energy loss due to poorly insulated windows or poorly constructed roofs. We want houses that do not lose heat and if possible produce energy with solar panels and wind turbines.

These trends are deep and reflect the state of mind of people who want to act on their environment while keeping a certain comfort.
We will come back later in this post to tell you about other trends that may emerge in the future.

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Draw free plan

Draw Plan

And the question that goes with that of the title is: how to have a quality and free house plan? Easy: just know how to draw a house plan!

Draw free plan
Draw free plan

I will respond with nuances. Indeed, in a conventional store, if you buy a connected speaker, the price is correlated with the quality. Naturally, a large and heavy speaker like Google Home will generally be more expensive than a small speaker because of better quality. It is valid for all objects of daily life. A Ferrari type car will be more expensive and of better quality than a Peugeot 109 or a Fiat Tipo (sorry for the manufacturers …).

And in digital?

In digital, it’s very different. Simply because the economic models are different. In digital, you can have an essentially free service. In one case, it will be completely free and the company that produces this service will live on advertising (we often see this with bloggers from Youtube). In another case, the service will be free, and the company that produces this service will live thanks to additional functionalities accessible through paid subscription. In both cases, the quality of the service must be important or people will not come to the site.

The answer of the question

So, to answer the question of the title: yes, we can have a quality and free product. But you should never forget that if the business model of the company does not work (not enough ads on the site because too many people put an ad blocker, or not enough people who take a paid version with new features) then the site can stop, which happens regularly.

And the solution

This is why we have chosen to put this free, archiplain house plan software online. We offer you essentially free software, of very good quality. And if you want new features, you can take a paid subscription that you only pay once (no renewal every month. You buy it today, and in 6 months or more, the account will still be active).

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2D and 3D floor plans

Draw Plan

Today, I would like to talk to you about 2D and 3D house plans. Because there is more and more software that offers 3D house plans and, curiously, the number of people who use 2D house plan software is always as important.

If you want to create your 2D plan, you need house building software as a free archiplain. You may consider downloading archiplain or other software.

What is the explanation?

But I think the explanation is elsewhere.

2D house plan
2D house plan

Imagine that I want to create floor plans. I will probably first draw my plans online. Create plan sounds easy, but not that much. And making modern house plans, farm house plans or custom house plans is quite difficult. This requires special skills related to the particular type of house. I’m not even talking about ranch house plans, country house plans or farm which are very specific.

No, the real reason is different

The real reason is this: we all have a greater or lesser difficulty in having a 3D representation of objects.

You all know examples of amusement parks that represent houses upside down, that is to say that the ceiling is on the floor and the floor on the ceiling. In general, after the first laughs to move around, one quickly becomes very disturbed. This is because our visual cues are in trouble. The same goes for 3D house plans. We can make a 2D house plan and with imagination, see 3D. But if the plan is in 3D, we are quickly lost.

Finally, you may prefer 2D or 3D to make your house plans. But the 2 will always exist. It’s like paper books and electronic books.

More:

Drone to sell a property

Draw Plan

More and more, we use drones to make virtual tours of real estate for sale. This makes it possible to move inside the house or to fly over it to see it as a whole.

But we rarely think of using a drone as a means of control.

What are the controls that can be done?

  • Control of the roof. You can look at the roof, gutters, vents, fireplaces, TV antennas, solar panels.
  • Control granaries in which we can not move. We can see the state of insulation, framing, ventilation systems, electrical installations.
  • Field control. At a certain height, we can see if the vegetation grows homogeneously, if the tops of the hedges are in good condition. We can also see if there are nests of Asian hornets.
  • Control of the surroundings. Better than with Google Map, because it is done immediately, we can see if there is nuisance in the surroundings: presence of a railway line, a highway, a factory of breeding of pigs or poultry, a treatment plant, a dam.

As we can see, there are many ways to control a real estate asset. From our point of view, it would be necessary for computer companies to make image processing software from the views of drones and offer this type of service to real estate agencies. Thus, it would bring a real plus to real estate sales.

More:

Provider of business in real estate

Draw Plan

Real estate is a market that drains very important financial flows. For many people, it’s the biggest purchase of a lifetime.

For a real estate agent, the most important thing is to have real estate for sale. For this, it is necessary that owners agree to entrust their property to this real estate agent through a contract. That’s why real estate agents spend a lot of time looking for properties for sale.

On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a retiree, an unemployed person or a young person to earn enough money to live. An elegant way to solve these difficulties is to become a business provider for real estate.

If you know a property for sale, or if you know people who will soon sell a property, you can talk to a real estate agent, of course respecting the discretion of the people who gave you this information.
How to access this information? These people who will sell their property are grouped into different categories, the main ones being:

  • Divorce proceedings. In some countries, one-third of couples divorce. It can be up to half. And the house or apartment must be sold for everyone to get money back.
  • Job transfer. Either the owner changes responsibility and has to move to another area, his plant has to close and he has to find work elsewhere.

Once we know this information, and with the agreement of the owner, just see the real estate agent and offer to sell this property. If the sale takes place, the provider of business can recover a certain amount of money that can range from a few hundred euros to a few thousand.

In conclusion, it is a good way to make money for people who need it to live without making it a real job.

Attention, in some countries, the regulation imposes a maximum of gains to this not exceed. Beyond, you have to declare yourself as a real estate agent.

More:

Make a kitchen plan

Draw Plan

There are several possibilities to build your kitchen, more precisely to equip your kitchen:

  • Buy the furniture and the rest like the oven, the sink, the refrigerator, the hood in a department store like Ikea
  • Order a custom furniture specialist and assemble the furniture yourself
  • Order everything from a specialist and let him do everything alone
  • Another possibility: build the furniture yourself and install them

In any case, you will have to plan the kitchen first. Of course, we recommend our online archiplain software but you can choose the one that interests you. Why do that? Because the dimensions of a house are rarely accurate. It is not uncommon to see deviations of one inch, or 2 to 3 centimeters, between theory and reality.

Once this kitchen plan is complete, you need the furniture. Never forget one thing: there is never enough room to store everything you need. So do not hesitate to install high furniture. Also take advantage of some tips for example to integrate the dishwasher in a piece of furniture. Do not forget also that it is important to be able to move easily in the kitchen which remains a place in which one moves a lot to make dishes.

Last thing: install a ventilation in the kitchen to allow the burned gases to be able to evacuate easily and to avoid intoxication. And install an evacuation above the hood that is connected to the outside. A big problem in kitchens is the accumulation of traces of oil on walls and furniture. These traces are very difficult to remove.

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5 ideas for selling your house

Draw Plan

Looking for what can make the difference to sell your house or apartment?

Of course, we can say that what makes the difference is the price of the living space, the size of the property, its cleanliness, the white walls, its insulation, the absence of noise, etc … You will find these arguments in all blogs that talk about real estate.

But selling or not selling often depends on small details.
Here are the 5 criteria that will make a good sale:

  1. Leisure around the house: all that is of interest in the region should be described, hiking, skiing, cinema, theater, games, remarkable landscape, castles, bike, etc …
  2. Seasonal Activities: If your house is in a ski resort, you may think that the winter (for skiing) and summer (for hiking) periods will be profitable, but the inter seasons like spring or summer autumn can take place in the rain …
  3. Special house: anything that can make your home different from the others: the morning sun in the kitchen, the movie room, the gym, the ceilings where you can hang ropes to play sports, the bed that enter a wall, …
  4. The equipment of the house: the washing machine with a large volume, the special oven pizza, home automation, security alarm, …
  5. The catering: all the places where one can eat well around the house, restaurant, pizzerias, creperie, etc … and their opening hours. I know a couple of people who bought a rather expensive house, first because it has beautiful finishes, but also because they can take their little black coffee on foot every morning not far away.

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Aquarium of humans

Draw Plan

I wanted to talk to you about this fashion of immersing homes for many reasons:

  • Enjoy the beauty of the seabed
  • Protect yourself from aerial attacks
  • Enjoy a constant temperature
  • Increase the living space

Here we present you a luxury holiday home with walls and fully transparent ceiling. The light and the view are beautiful. But no doubt that Mr Photoshop has been there.

Because we must not forget that special glass walls can get dirty. It is therefore necessary to regularly clean these windows of the mosses and algae that are deposited there. More annoyingly, shellfish have the bad habit of sticking to it and are more difficult to remove.

But on arrival, we can enjoy the show.

Be careful though: the sea is not always a world of peace and happiness. You could attend a shark’s meal that shreds a sea lion at the time of your coffee. I remember a natural park in which a glass tunnel was installed in the middle of a lion pen. As we were crossing this tunnel, the park feeders threw chickens to feed these lions. The sight of these lions with the blood-covered jaws just above us was unpleasant.

By ignoring these unpleasant situations, the spectacle of the sea is often exhilarating. Just look at the slow movement of a starfish or jellyfish to gain some serenity.

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Christmas toys for future architects

Draw Plan

As the holidays approached, we looked for some original ideas to offer our children. It will then convince Santa Claus to put these gifts in his hood.

First of all, wooden toys to be used by child victims of trauma. In any case, the purpose of these toys. But in reality, all children can handle these toys:

Then we found a child-friendly computer, a collaboration between Microsoft and Kano. And the most interesting is that this computer can be made by children:

Finally, the Danish company Lego has launched bricks for use by blind children:

It is always difficult to find original toys to offer to children who already have everything. But by looking a little, we find …

More:

Open space or not?

Draw Plan

Open space started in the 50s in the United States and in the 80s in Europe. The concept is to offer workers large trays of open work. The idea is to allow exchanges between employees and not to leave people alone in their office. To be a little more precise, we can also suspect that it prevents workers from doing nothing during their working hours …

What are the benefits for the company?

  • Cohesion between people
  • Reduce the area needed to accommodate the same number of people
  • Modularity of spacing

But if these benefits to the business are so interesting, why some are critical. Let’s go through all this:

  • Permanent contact between the employees and the line manager
  • Feeling of being watched which leads to stress
  • Too noisy which prevents some from focusing

How to have an open space in your company while allowing its employees to work in good conditions? Let’s explore some solutions:

  • Install a break room for breaks to leave the noisy space
  • Make a meeting room outside the open space
  • Define rules of living in common
  • Add touches of nature like plants that give a pleasant appearance and allow to filter the noises

Finally, open space provides an indisputable advantage to companies but it must be done to respect the good quality of work otherwise the economy on one side will be lost by the poor efficiency of workers.

More:

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