Metropix, one of the leading suppliers of floor plan based products to the residential estate agency market, has reached a major milestone within its tenth anniversary year with the creation of is seven-millionth floor plan.

The floor plan was produced by Fergus Lindsay, Senior Valuer of Scotland-based agents Slater Hogg & Howison, which has 25 branches across the country.

On completing the floor plan, which is for a two-bedroom loft-style apartment on the prestigious Ingram Street in Glasgow, the team at Metropix contacted the agent’s Candleriggs office to discover that the seven millionth planwas produced by Fergus Lindsay (right). To celebrate the milestone, a giant cookie was delivered to Lindsay and his colleagues to enjoy.

Talking about the creation of the seven millionth plan, Brian Farrell, Director of Metropix, said, “When I set up Metropix ten years ago, I knew the market was ready to embrace floor plans as a mainstream marketing tool for selling houses. The appetite was there, however at the time, the only way you could produce such plans was via specialist CAD tools which were expensive and not easy to use. We therefore created Metropix to fill the gap and, here we are ten years later celebrating the fact that seven million plans have now been produced! It’s a great achievement and I would like to thank all our customers, including the team at Slater Hogg & Howison, for their continued support.”

Floor plans remain a vital marketing tool to help agents sell and let more homes, with 84 per cent of estate agency professionals polled by Metropix last year confirming that offering floor plans helped their agency to secure new instructions, while a further 89 per cent confirmed that including floor plans on portals encouraged buyers to view their agency’s properties.

When asked what their number one reason was for including floor plans, 48 per cent said they believed they give a better representation of the property, while 44 per cent were responding to consumer demand, suggesting that it is what buyers or prospective tenants want or ask for. A significant 94 per cent confirmed it would have a negative impact on their business if they were to stop using floor plans.

When it comes to the type of floor plans that agents are using, 56.9 per cent continue to use black and white 2D floor plans, while 21 per cent prefer to use 3D plans on their property.

“Most people just want some idea of layout and room sizes,” said Vivienne Harris of Heathgate estate agents. “We find that 2D floorplans work just as well as 3D plans.”

Mandy Stevenette of Stevenette & Company says that floor plans are quite simply “essential” when it comes to marketing a property for sale or to let.

“They allow applicants to very quickly understand the layout of a property, how the space flows and the relationship or proximity of one room to another,” she said.