What Is 3D House Rendering?
A 3D house rendering is a photorealistic picture of a single-family home, made from the drawings before anything is built. We model the house from your plans and elevations, put the real materials and colors on it, set it on the actual lot with the driveway and the trees that are already there, and light it for a particular time of day. If the work is done properly, the image is hard to tell from a photo of the finished house.
Architects use house renderings to show a client how the brick, the roofline and the window proportions actually come together, because most clients cannot read that from an elevation. Builders sell spec homes and lot-and-plan packages from them while the site is still dirt. Homeowners use them to look at an addition, new siding or a pool terrace in context, and to settle finish choices before the contract is signed. When the drawing changes later, the render is updated rather than redone: a different siding color or a wider porch is a revision.
We have produced house renderings since 2010. The same team of 30-plus artists also works on apartment buildings and hotels, and the houses on this page were made by the same people.
Who We Render Houses For
Architects and custom home builders. Most of our house work comes from practices like Melichar Architects, B1 Architects, Gnome Architects and Baglio Design. They send a set of drawings for a single-family project and get back images they can put in front of a client, a planning board or a homeowners’ association. Builders use the same images twice: as the listing photos for a home that is still a foundation, and again as the marketing set for a plan that will be built several times.
Homeowners. Usually they come with plans from their architect or a builder’s proposal; sometimes with sketches and a folder of reference photos. We render the house as it will look from the street, and if they want it, the rooms that matter most, which in practice means the kitchen and the main living space. The point is to make the finish decisions once, on screen, instead of on site with the crew waiting.
Developers of single-family communities use house renders for lot sales and model-home marketing. If the project is an apartment building, a townhouse block or a mixed-use scheme, the right page is our residential rendering service; the full range of building types is covered by our architectural rendering services. For office, retail and hospitality buildings, see 3D exterior rendering services.
Most of the houses we render are in the United States. The gallery above runs from Chicago’s North Shore and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home to several of the builders we work with, to the Jersey Shore, Palm Beach County, Phoenix and the Boise area. Drawings arrive the same way from anywhere, and we work with European practices on the same terms.
House Styles We Render
Every home has its own character, and the render has to follow it. Materials, proportions and landscaping come from your drawings and references. There is no house template we start from, so a fully custom design gets the same treatment as a standard plan type.
Modern houses. Large glazing, flat or low-pitched roofs, mixed cladding. What matters here is the reflection in the glass, the texture of concrete or steel panels, and how light falls across a long facade. Those are the things a contemporary design is judged on, so that is where the time goes.
Farmhouses and traditional homes. Gabled roofs, board-and-batten or lap siding, porches, stone bases. A modern farmhouse in black siding, a craftsman bungalow and a colonial all live here. The render has to get the trim and millwork right, because that is what makes these houses look real.
Mediterranean and luxury homes. Terracotta roofs, stucco and stone, courtyards, pools, mature planting. High-end houses are bought on atmosphere, so we nearly always produce a dusk view alongside the daylight one.
Coastal and custom residences. Shingle-style homes, wraparound balconies, elevated foundations, ocean and lake settings, and one-off houses that do not fit any category. These are rendered exactly to the drawings, with the site and its views built from survey data and photographs.
Daylight, dusk and night. The same house can be shown in bright midday sun, in warm evening light with the windows lit, or at night. Dusk is the usual choice for listings. Daylight is clearer for approvals and material decisions.
Interior rooms as part of the set. When a client wants the inside of the house shown too, we add the key rooms, typically the kitchen, living area and primary suite, from the same model and within the same project. If the project is interior-only, say a remodel with no change to the house itself, our interior rendering team handles it separately.
What a House Render Includes
A single view is one camera angle at standard print resolution, usually the front elevation from the street. A full home rendering set adds the angles that sell a house: the rear elevation with the garden or pool, a three-quarter view that shows the depth of the plan, an aerial of the lot, and a dusk variant of the main view. Every image includes:
- the house modeled from your plans, elevations and sections, with the specified materials and colors;
- the lot as it is: grading, driveway, fencing, existing trees, and the neighboring houses where they matter;
- landscaping to the landscape plan, or a realistic proposal if there is no plan yet;
- lighting for the chosen time of day, with interior lights on for dusk and night views;
- people, cars and terrace furniture where they help the scale, and nowhere else.
Files are delivered as high-resolution images ready for print and web. If the listing also needs plans, we produce 3D floor plans from the same model.
We model in 3ds Max, render with Corona and finish in Photoshop. Drawings are accepted as PDF, DWG, Revit or SketchUp files.
How We Render a House: Five Steps
1. Brief and references. We collect the drawings: floor plans, elevations, sections and the site plan, plus material and color selections, the address, and any reference images. If a 3D or BIM model exists we start from it. Then we agree on the number of views, the camera angles and the time of day, and confirm the price and the schedule. Nothing is modeled before that.
2. Clay renders. The house is modeled and placed on the lot, and you get untextured “clay” views from the agreed angles. This is where the geometry, the cameras and the composition are approved. Moving a camera at this stage is a five-minute job; moving it after the materials are in is not.
3. First color preview. Materials, colors, glazing and landscaping go in, and the house looks close to final. Most of the feedback comes here: a different stone, a warmer wood, older trees.
4. Second color preview. Your comments are applied and the lighting is refined. This round is for adjustments, not a new direction.
5. Final images. Full-resolution renders with post-production (color grading, atmosphere, people and vehicles), delivered in the formats you need. A standard house rendering project takes five to ten business days from brief to final images. A single view can be faster, and you get the exact date at step one.
3D House Rendering Cost
The cost of a 3D house rendering depends on four things: how many views you need, how complex the house is, how much detail the surroundings need, and how soon you need it. We price per image or per project. A single view of a simple house costs a single view; there are no minimum packages. The ranges below are starting points, and the exact figure comes with a free quote once we have seen the drawings.
| Package | What is included | Starting price* |
|---|
| Single view | One photorealistic view of the house from one angle, standard resolution | from $500 |
| House set | Several angles plus a dusk or night variant of the main view | from $700 |
| House and key rooms | The full set plus the kitchen, living area and primary suite | from $1,500 |
| Full house package | Complete set of views, inside and out, marketing-ready | from $3,000 |
*Indicative prices; the final quote depends on the scope of the project.
What moves the price of a home rendering up or down:
- Number of views. Each additional angle or room adds to the total.
- Complexity of the house. Intricate rooflines, custom millwork, detailed stonework and large glazed areas take longer to model.
- Surroundings and landscaping. A house on a flat suburban lot is simpler than one on a slope with terraces, mature trees and a view that has to match the real one — the hillside lots of Los Angeles are the usual case.
- Resolution and post-production. Billboard-size prints and heavy photo compositing cost more than web-size images.
- Turnaround. Rush projects carry a premium. Standard schedules do not.
Standard revisions are included at the clay and preview stages. Changes to the design itself after the previews are approved are quoted separately. For a wider view of how rendering is priced, see our guide to how much 3D rendering costs.
Why Architects and Builders Render With Freedes
- Houses since 2010. Single-family homes were among the first jobs the studio took, and the architects who send them tend to come back with the next one; the gallery above is a slice of that work.
- Built from your drawings. We read plans and elevations fluently, so the render matches the house that will be built, down to the window schedule. Nothing is taken from stock.
- One point of contact. A project manager who replies within an hour and keeps the previews on schedule.
- Predictable pricing. You get a quote before we start, and revisions are part of the process.
- A portfolio to check us against. Houses in every style, in the selection above and in the full portfolio.
