Prospective homeowners - what are you looking for?

I'd like to know what you're looking for when shopping for a pre-fab home. What is important to you? Does it need to have a bedroom? Should it have outdoor living areas (patio/deck)?

I look at attention to detail. I also look for high ceilings where I don't feel caged in. Flutter lines are evil. But, yeah.. the main thing here is detail, detail, detail in the textures used.

Sex bots.

Oh, and money printing machines. Those are always handy.

I'll be sure to include those as an option on my new homes. The plug-n-play kind, right?

Having purchased three of your prefabs, you might call me a fan of your architecture and skillful execution.

I think my tastes don't reflect the modal, but I'll tell you what I think makes a good SL build. Avatars are not humans; they like swoopy (tm) structures that allow easy ingress from flight. When I think of an idealized SL build, my primary inspiration was Viola Bach's Milano Fashions in Tan. At Vi's there were no walls, no roof but the area was well defined and acommodating. However, most prefab buyers probably don't want a well textured platform.

Following the swoopy (tm) model in more conventional builds would suggest landing areas for arrivals and departures and larger spaces rather than tight compartmentalization so that cameras don't pop outside the structure or on the other side of a wall.

I have noticed that your builds all have a very distinctive "Juro" style which is integrated and distinctive. If I had to make any suggestion it would be to try studying the masters in styles different than your own (Gehrey's Bilbao museum?) and then let your sensibility incorporate into them.

I guess you know that many prefab buyers are likely L$, footprint, and prim limited which your current prefabs address well. Is there a market for higher prim builds? Would it sacrifice your elegance? I wish I knew the answers.

Oh and your doors are typically pretty narrow for even a dwarf AV like me. Bonk! Please understand your work has been an inspiration to me and I sorta feel arrogant even passing on constructive comments. Oh and to others reading this, go buy Juro's prefabs; they are quite newbie friendly and he's made his recent ones modifiable which allow you to start with a prefab and learn to texture and then to make additions and then start ripping out pieces until you have a place that is very much yours. That was a pretty magnanimous thing you've done Juro.

-----
swoopy(tm) is a registered trademark of Malachi Petunia. Well, not really registered or a trademark, but I believe I did coin it in regard to SL architecture and expect it shall bring me fame and fortune

Malachi, I've been working on a much larger, more detailed home. I'll have to show you sometime.


This is great feedback Malachi.. no one has ever mentioned that before.

Thank you again for the positive reviews and great feedback!

I would like ideally:

A deck
A porch
Stairs between each floor, with lots of clearing room in the top opening
Wide open doors
A balcony on each floor
A good mix between visibility and privacy.
Lots of Moulding-type details at seams/vertices, either textured or primmed.

This is great info Alicia! Thank you.

I built a little prefab for someone last week and included and little pond with moving water in it on the deck. She seemed to really like it, as well as the fireplace with flames.

Prefabs are great, you get to live in a decent house while you learn to build. Juro, I remember you came to help me twice with my prefab that I got at the GNU dollar store when I started. I was pulling out my hair with the building tools. I don't know if you tech support your houses like that all the time (a house I bought for 1L) but it was very nice of you.

I try to help out whenever I can. The biggest problem people were having was setting up and aligning all of the parts to thier new home - which is why I created the Placement Sphere. So far, it seems that has been very helpful in setting up the homes.

Simply put, after several days of looking at houses, i'd guess alot of first time home buyers would like:

A) Exceedingly low prims... it's a @)(*$@ to decorate on 50 prims.
B) Fits a standard 512 footprint lot
C) Wide variety, you DON'T want to look like your neighbors.

personally, i'd like to see a well done, small castle that doesn't make me feel claustraphobic.

Juro,

I bought your homes because they are beautiful and have elegant lines. They are kinda prim heavy but worth it I guess.

I am still struggling with the placement sphere and the doors. It's just counterintuitive to have doors way out in left field, connecting to some sliver of a pie that you are supposed to align on a ball that is far from the door. Maybe the doors should all be on their own placement sphere? I'm still far from done on the Portland but I will keep struggling...

Here are my suggestions, after reviewing many, many prefabs, taking them apart, modifying them, placing them for rental customers:

1) Yes, you need privacy. Don't make an architectural sculpture with a skylight and chill space that looks artistic and then forget that real people want to live there and have privacy, and not just for av sex but for just plain privacy, as anyone would want in a home anywhere -- make sure they can come in a door comfortable without banging their head, especially while flying in, make sure they can land like a bird, and make sure they have privacy not viewable from outside in any fashion.

2) The cliffside-type houses have to consider maybe being spread out more E-W rather than jutting out N-S -- just a thought. Otherwise they have to be turned awkwardly. Wish there was a way to conveniently stretch out the legs. Some pre-fab makers provide you an extra set of modifiable legs, even if the main body of the house is not modifiable.

3) It's not really clear if the tinting is "enough", even from the ads on the boxes.

4) Ramps are completely unnecessary. These are buildings you will fly into. You will never walk into them, especially if they are rezzed somewhere on the side of a cliff or away to the side.

I have had customers use these as both offices and homes, they're great!

Random,

I'm glad you like the home! If you're still having problems with the Placement Sphere, I can help out when I can get IW tonight.

The key to the Placement Sphere is to lay down the base (usually Part 1) and then write down/record the X,Y,Z coordinates *and* the X,Y,Z rotations. As long as you make sure each slice has the exact same coordinates *and* rotation, it will line up perfectly.

Send me an IM IW and let me know how it's going.

I'm working on a solution that will allow people to have lots of glass for views, but also be able to close it off when they want more privacy.

I am just finishing a new prefab home that is laid out just as you mention - however, it is also the largest home I've ever made as a prefab. More details on this soon.

All of my homes are set to allow copy, so you can add more supports, if needed (or replace a stray part).

I'm looking into adjustable tint windows.

Agreed. I used them on my SOMA model, but none of the rest. Fly-in is the way to go.

This is really good feedback, Random - thank you very much!

Here's a sneak peek at the new prefab home I mentioned. I'm pretty excited about this house, as it will have features never before offered in my homes.

I just bought my first prefab house until I can get the hang of building.. I looked around at probably 15 differetn places before I finally decided on onethat I could manage, and edit. I live offline, in a gorgeous 1900 Victorian house... I'm addicted to them.. hahaha So I was looking or something like that, it would have to fit on a 512 plot, and be 2 stories... I wanted a traditional look rather than artistic. To me, landscaping and details are where the art comes in..

I got the house, from Jim Pasteur I believe, put it on my land.. and it was TOO big! LOL Thank goodness it was somewhat modifiable, i just shrunk it till it fit, and it's still got lots of room inside... I've redone 95% of the textures on it and plan on doing more still..

What I looked for was something my style, low prim, that would fit on a 512 lot... I found myself spending a LOT more time in the places that had models already put up that I could go in and look around.. get a feel for the size.... I have a hard time seeing something from just a picture on a box... kudos for that idea!

What I would really like to be able to do, is modify the one wall that's out of alignment with the others...it's driving me nuts.. haha

I think the biggest selling points are displays, modifiability, and ease of use for us newbies. hahaha


Great thread btw


edited to add... forgot to mention, I wanted something with multiple rooms... bedroom, living room, etc..

Thanks for the feedback, Alysa. Currently, my prefab homes are all in a more 'modern' category, although, this is something I will be working on in the future. There is a large demand for more classic home styles.

I am currently revamping my entire line to include some of the features mentioned in this thread. My homes are already copy/mod enabled, so you can tweak them to your hearts content and pull out a fresh copy if things really go wrong. I'm also going to apply the Placement Sphere (with updated instructions) on each model to aid in the setup of the home.

New features that will be included on each prefab:

- 4 level, one-way tinting windows. This tints the *outside* of the window only - so as not to destroy your view from inside the house.

- light sensing automatic lights w/manual override. This will turn off the lights during the day when you don't need them, but includes a manual override incase force night.

The updated models should be finished in a week or so.

Great thread, Juro, glad to see someone asking people what they'd like, instead of waiting for us lazy types to go whining for it. After reading this, I'll have to check out your stuff. Unfortunately, when in game, I'm too busy to really try my hand at building, I usually have a friend or 12 who requires my attention (or my lindens ). Though, building is something I'd really really enjoy once I got the hang of it.


People like myself, are always looking for something "different" such as the aforementioned castle. I'm constantly tinkering, trying to find JUST the right texture, or nuance in my personal domicile. Basically, if you think it's too funky I'm sure there's a market out there for it. for now, I'm looking for something very very tiny, that'll fit on what's left of my lot after putting down Valadeza's Lagoon and Amazon Oasis (which are different enough to suit my tastes).

in addition to this thread i would like to know what kind of prefab buildnigs u would buy.. only homes? or also shops/clubs etc..

below is my website for some prefabs i already made

I recently modified a prefab that I purchased from a pre-fab store into a shop/apartment for myself.

I only want to own one plot of land right now, but I wanted a shop on the bottom and a spacious apartment home on the top. I saw maybe only one or two structures that worked for something like this so it might be worth looking into making a few made specifically for this use. Surely I'm not the only one who likes this set-up.

I made my shop real open, and the apartment more private with a "locking" door so that people don't go up there thinking all that stuff is for sale hehe.

ah.. well.. i got at least 2 buildings for sale atm that would suit you then..
in fact i think you have bought one already in the past..

Good points Sherrade. I'm sure there are others out there looking for a combo store/house build.

One thing I've been trying to work on lately is getting feedback from store owners and shoppers to tailor the build for easy shopping. One item that kept coming up was that alot of shoppers didn't really like stores with roofs. Some shop owners felt it was beneficial to not have a roof so that as people fly by, they can easily spot merchandise inside the store.

Maybe attaching the home to the back of the store might be a good way to include some of the features mentioned above.

What a brilliant idea. Why didn't I think of this? Okay, so I'm not brilliant.


oOOOOOhh Juro I love your website!

Thanks Ingrid! It's not quite complete (about 4 more pages to do), but I thought I'd start getting it out there.

there are a ton of great prefabs out there but the main problem is not everybody owns a sim. the houses are gorgeous but totally out of control prim wise. i can buy a great looking house & stick it on my 1536 & then not be able to put much else into it cuz the house takes up most of my prim allotment.


please build great houses for the 1536 & under people...houses under 40 prim

i got the house you all are looking for in only 32 prims

ingrid.. can you tell them please??

hahah