Category: Floor Plans

Floor plans aren’t just a nice-to-have for your property listings. They’re essential. 

Professional-looking floor plans give prospective buyers and renters a better sense of the property’s layout, flow, and functionality, making it easier to imagine themselves living there. 

According to Rightmove, over a third of buyers are less likely to enquire about a property if the listing doesn’t include a floor plan, with 1 in 5 saying they would completely ignore the listing. 

The stats are clear. If you fail to include decent floor plans in your listings, you’re missing out on potential instructions and the opportunity to grow your agency’s market share. 

However, as an estate agent, you’ll know how frustrating it is that it takes so long to create professional-looking floor plans yourself. 

Fortunately, you can do a few things to streamline the process without compromising on quality.

Floor plan creation: The problem

As alluded to in the introduction, a few of the ways agents create floor plans are complex.

For example, in some instances, agents measure the property and sketch floor plans by hand (some just publish these hand-drawn sketches, which is something we don’t recommend!). Unfortunately, even the neatest drawings can be challenging to read and interpret.

Then, to transform these drawings into something more presentable, many solutions require you to re-build the floor plan using their software. This is pretty tedious. 

Alternatively, agents sometimes use software to create floor plans at the property. However, this is often time-consuming and fiddly when building a rapport with the vendor or landlord. 

Fortunately, other options are available.

Floor plan creation: The solution

With the help of PropertyBox, you can easily convert hand-drawn floor plans into professional-looking layouts. 

Our pros transform hand-drawn sketches into polished floor plans in as little as 1 hour and 20 minutes (on average) for just £5+VAT per floor plan! 

You just upload your sketch, and we’ll handle the rest. Then, if you need to make any corrections to your floor plan, such as replacing a missing door or updating a measurement, you can use the intuitive drag-and-drop editor. 

Floor plan creation tips

Now you have a quick and affordable solution to streamlining your floor plan creation process, let’s explore some of our top tips for constructing floor plans that sing.

This is imperative for arresting prospects’ attention and could make the difference between piquing a client’s interest in your services and not. 

3D floor plans

There are lots of benefits to using 3D layouts, not least that they look more impressive. They’re an excellent point of differentiation and can establish your agency as a leader and pioneer in property marketing. This is especially true, considering many competitors will only provide basic 2D-floor plans.

3D floor plans are also more likely to increase listing engagement among potential buyers, renters, and prospective clients. People are naturally drawn to visually engaging content and 3D floor plans certainly fall into that category! 

In addition, 3D floor plans make it easier to visualise the property’s design, flow, room sizes, and spatial relationships more effectively than traditional 2D floor plans, which can help buyers and renters make informed decisions about whether the home meets their requirements. 

That way, when someone books a viewing, you know they’re more likely to seriously consider the property rather than just window shop, saving precious time that could be better used prospecting!

Add furniture

Adding furniture is one of the easiest ways to boost engagement with your floor plans. It provides scale and proportion to give viewers a better sense of the room’s size and how the space could be utilised. 

Floor plans also enhance the layout’s visual appeal, improving the chances that your listing will capture viewers’ attention while they’re scrolling through portals quickly. 

Lastly, furniture boasts the added benefit of injecting warmth, character, and context into the layout. It evokes an emotional response, helping the viewer connect with the place and envision how they might arrange their own furniture.

Add a splash of colour

Consider opting for coloured floor plan diagrams. Colour makes distinguishing between different rooms and floors easier. Plus, coloured floor plans stand a better chance of capturing the eye of prospective vendors and landlords browsing property portals- a win-win!

Similarly, we suggest adding a background colour that reflects your agency’s brand. Again, this helps the visuals stand out from other listings while boosting brand consistency and recognition. 

Watermark floor plans with your agency’s logo

You’ll know how frustrating it is that your agency’s brand gets little to no recognition on popular property portals – especially when prospects browse via mobile.

Considering almost half of property searches are done via mobile, that’s a huge opportunity to market your agency’s brand lost!  

This is where adding watermarks to your floor plans becomes a real asset for ensuring your branding remains front and centre of the listing, increasing the chances of prospects remembering your agency. 

Plus, watermarking lends an air of professionalism and is a powerful shield against the unauthorised use of your floor plans. 

Pro Tip: Strike the balance between positioning your watermark so people can see it and keeping the photo intact. Typically, the top right or bottom left corners are best. It’s also worth double-checking how your listing looks on desktop and mobile devices, so if your branding is cut off, you can adjust your watermark’s positioning accordingly.     

Add a compass

Lots of sellers love to shout about south-facing gardens, so being able to offer vendors a compass on your floor plans is a compelling point of difference between agents.

It could also pique the interest of buyers and renters if a south-facing garden is essential in their next property, making for a speedier transaction!

Are you ready to streamline your agency’s floor plan creation process for speed and quality?

We hope this blog post has provided some food for thought and that you now have a better idea of how to create high-quality floor plans quickly and affordably.

#Thanks to PropertyBox’s latest update, all the above floor plan features are available (and more), so why not see for yourself how we can help you streamline your floor plan creation process for speed and quality? For more information, contact our Customer Success Pros today!

Jessica Peckett

Several ingredients form the perfect property listing, and floor plans are one such component. 

In fact, as many as 78% of sellers rated floor plans as having a 7/10 (or higher) importance. On top of that, 1 in 5 property hunters would either “ignore the property advert completely” or “only re-visit it if nothing else caught their eye” if the listing didn’t include a floor plan.

The bottom line: Floor plans are essential for attracting potential viewers. 

Given how vital floor plans are for creating appealing property listings, you want to ensure your floor plan software offers everything you need to make the most out of this visual content type. 

To help with this, we’re revealing three things all floor plan software should offer its users (so, if your current provider doesn’t provide these features…maybe it’s time to swap to someone who does?) 

Interested? Great! Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of this blog post!

1. Watermarking and branding

There are several advantages to adding watermarks to your floor plans, including:

Strengthening your brand: When house hunters view property listings, they focus more on the residence itself rather than your agency. That’s why you and your agents need to scream about your brand at every opportunity – including within your floor plans! 

Adding your logo as a watermark to your floor plans increases the chances of buyers seeing your brand and taking note of your agency (especially if they want to view similar properties). In other words, this is a quick and simple way of boosting brand visibility and, consequently, brand recognition.  

This is especially handy when listing properties on portals like Rightmove, as they try to hide your brand as much as possible. As such, adding a watermark to floor plans is an excellent way to sidestep this issue.

Make your listings look more professional: Branded floor plans make property listings look more professional, which works wonders for generating trust with potential buyers. When an agency proudly plasters its name on its stock, it instils confidence in house hunters, which should translate into more enquiries. 

Safeguard your floor plans: If you’re a veteran estate agent, you’ll know that from time to time, you’ll lose instructions to competing agencies. Should this unfortunate scenario happen while your listing is still live, unscrupulous agents might try to steal your floor plans. So, adding a watermark can deter competitors from doing this, reducing the likelihood of them benefitting from the visual content you’ve spent time and money producing!

2. Tweak with an online editor

Unfortunately, most floor plan software providers don’t offer an online editor that lets you quickly tweak your floor plans. 

This is where access to an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that allows you to modify your floor plans after they’ve been created is worth its weight in gold. 

For example, if you notice a missing door or need to update measurements on your floor plan, you can make those modifications within seconds! This is much quicker, easier, and cheaper than commissioning a new floor plan re-draw from scratch.

3. Quick turnaround times

Last but not least, speedy turnaround times are imperative for publishing property listings as quickly as possible. After all, the sooner you post your listing, the quicker you’ll generate interest in the property. 

That’s why here at PropertyBox, we’re proud to say that, on average, we deliver our professional floor plan re-draws within 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Other floor plan re-draw services typically offer a 24-hour turnaround. We’re looking at you BoxBrownie, Photoplan Bookings, or, in some cases like Abdone, as long as 48-72 hours!

How can PropertyBox help?

If you’re wondering where you can find floor plan software that offers all the above (and more!), PropertyBox is your go-to. 

More specifically, you’ll benefit from the following features: 

• You can choose between black-and-white or coloured floor plans
• Watermarking and branding features
• You can tweak floor plans using an intuitive drag-and-drop online editor
• You can label rooms/specific areas

…all for just £5+VAT per floor plan!

If any of that piqued your interest and you would like more info about PropertyBox’s floor plan re-draws, schedule a callback today, and we’ll get back to you within 55 seconds or less!

Let’s be honest: navigating tricky floor plan software probably isn’t the best part of your job.
Got your floor plan sketch? Now that’s all you need with our floor plan conversion tool.

Upload your sketch to PropertyBox and we’ll have a professional floor plan back to you in no time at all, giving you more time to focus on what you do best.

Learn more about our floor plan tool here

Creating Floor Plans

A finished professional-looking floor plan can appear incredibly simple at first glance but, if you’ve ever tried to create one, you know that representing even the most simple of homes in an accurate and easy to understand way is both difficult and time consuming.

There’s no denying floor plans are fundamental to an effective listing. A representation of the space helps buyers, sellers and renters to better understand and visualise what the property has to offer. In today’s market, savvy sellers always include floor plans with their property listings. Alongside beautiful property photography, the floor plan is one of the most valuable assets for agents to showcase properties to their maximum potential.

Over a third of buyers said that they were less likely to enquire about a property without a floor plan.

However, creating a floor plan is easier said than done. With so many options for software and services in the marketplace, even knowing where to start can be a challenge, never mind getting to grips with the nuances of each tool and the time it takes to draw, refine, brand and colour each one.

Here at PropertyBox we’re all about saving estate agents time and money, while showing every property to its best potential. Our brand new floor plan tool allows you to hand sketch the floor plan, upload it to the PropertyBox app and, in a matter of hours, we’ll send you back a professional, listing-ready floorplan. It couldn’t be easier!

There’s no longer the need to learn how to use complicated CAD tools or wait days for floor plans to be drawn, just sketch it, upload and add your preferences… we’ll do the rest. 

With our latest tool you could even sketch and upload the floor plan while you’re at the property, allowing you to get listings online faster and giving you more time to focus on what you do best.

OK, so we’ve covered how professional floor plans can help create quality listings that increase sales and how our tool can save you time while giving great results… we’ve saved one of the best features ‘til last though… the price. 

Try it for yourself and see how our new floor plan software can help you and your property business!