The inner city market is highly competitive, and every builder is looking for some kind of edge over the competition. At the retail level, the buyers only see the polished end product, and they could not possibly know who put together any given design concept.
The builders tend to need to do interior design work quickly, but this leads to some really awful interior selections. Perhaps a better way is to go view the show home of the most spectacular home you can find and 'imitate' the finish package?
I am certainly not innocent when it comes to this. I like to tour some of my favourite builder show homes so I can see what they are up to. Because the trends tend to trickle down from the most expensive neighbourhoods, it is easy to ensure any property is very up to date or even ahead of the trends by visiting a few million dollar show homes.
I was visiting today at my friend 'Paul's' project. He is a very prolific builder and plans to finish 12 houses this year. I couldn't help but notice the virtual knockoff of my prior townhouse project interior design. He used the same cabinets, counters, and the hardwood and tile were just a shade off. What happened is he liked my show suite so much he took photos and copied every element as closely as possible.
This works both ways, I have adopted a few of his trades as well as offering him some options for design that he hadn't used before. On at least one instance he has basically reneged on a land deal that had reached the legal phase, so I had a huge grudge against him after that. My position was that he scammed me out of a handshake level land deal and wasted some legal work. Hopefully Paul has some more trades I can use to improve my costs or procedures. I met his house cleaner today doing the prepossession cleaning job, and took his phone number. So in the end it is ok if Paul rips off a few of my design ideas. Eventually I will return the favour...
Here is my master bathroom from the 2015 design project built and sold by early 2016. The original design work was done courtesy of yours truly.
Here is the project Paul finished in March 2017. Every feature of this bathroom is similar. Tap, countertop, tile backsplash, cabinet doors, etc. It would not have been more similar if I had done it myself. Maybe I will change the locks before Paul gets to walkthrough my current project (that is going to be impossible because we are using some of the same trades).