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Personal pet peeve - local ad on the radio, lady says "I had to take a class on ethics before I could call myself a 'realtor' (and charge 6% -which people happily pay - to juggle a few papers, unlike that poor architect down the street who went to college for 5 years, got a degree, interned for 3 years under a licensed professional, took an intensive state exam and now charges the same 6% - which nobody wants to pay - so he can do hundreds of hours of drafting and pay for engineering and sign his name on each sheet and carry the burden of liability for the rest of his life). Oh, wait, that last part wasn't in the commercial.

It wasn't? Hmmm ... I guess that you have to have the special decoder ring that all of us artichokes ... er, ah, "Architects" ... get with your license!

lol, my boss is an Architect AND a Realtor.
He was an Architect for about 20 years first, so his punch lists are horrendously long and detailed.
Good for my wife and I, bad for the builder.

So now, he's making real money?

Making money is not hard.... its just a matter of getting the ink colors right.

Six-percent? For a small developer-work, I'm lucky if I get 1-percent of what he'll sell the house for. Even if you just factor the hard-costs, it's bearly 2- to 3-percent of the construction-costs. That's for the design and the permit construction drawings.

In-part, it's because the "traditional" Architect's Scope of work includes on-going materials and fixture selection, and construction inspections. When your dealing with builder-developers, they do that themsleves and don't want to pay for twice....plus they want the flexibiliity over fix/finish and specifications and product-selection. A day in the field with the Architect present is about a thousand bucks every two-weeks or monthly....more if there's a formal report to the Owner and financial-lenders.