Brand reliability and trustworthiness leading factor for buyers of Affordable Housing: RICS –Knight Frank Report

                 

by Shrutee K/DNS

New Delhi: International Property Consultant Knight Frank in association with Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) today released a report “Affordable Housing- Know your customer”. The latest RICS – Knight Frank report captures findings of a market survey that was conducted with homebuyers across 15 cities in India to understand the expectations of the urban end - users for ideal affordable housing. Homebuyers ranging from age 23 to 66 were surveyed and the engagement methods primarily used were Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) – Qualitative Research and Structured Questionnaires based interactions – Quantitative Research.

KEY FINDINGS

While purchasing an affordable housing property, product quality ranked as the 1^st key parameter followed by Brand Name. 

80% homebuyers put cost as the top most consideration while buying a home followed by safety and security for 71% for homebuyers

52% home buyers highlighted parking space as a major gap in terms of their requirements in their current residences, followed by adequate security, playground and availability of public transport accounted for 43% each.

53% home buyers said that self-use is the main purchase driver. While 48% highlighted better location and 44% expanding family size, amongst others as important drivers for their decision to buy houses.

As per Knight Frank’s market survey, customers perceive the below mention brands as top 10 developers providing affordable housing

Provident Housing

Mahindra Lifespaces

PS Group 

Prestige Group

Lodha Group

ATS Homekraft

Signature Global

TATA Value Homes

Godrej Properties

Ashiana Group

Nimish Gupta FRICS, Managing Director, South Asia - RICS said, “Housing is one of the most fundamental demands that influence the quality of life. Access to acceptable living conditions is an elementary human need, which affects individuals at many levels as it provides shelter, safety, security and for most of us represents the most significant investment that we will ever make during our lifetime. The affordable home segment offers great potential which is yet to be fully explored. This segment will definitely perform better when affordable housing projects ‘on-ground’, while catering to the needs of customers on security, safety and lifestyle attributes are successfully executed and energies stay focussed on delivering these within the promised cost and timeframes.”

Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director of Knight Frank India said “Customers of affordable housing are highly value conscious and since they normally buy a house once in their life time, the focus is more on developer credibility. Today, when most of the stake holders in real estate sector are boarding the affordable housing bandwagon, they need to first understand their consumers before converting their ideas into reality. This explicitly explains why few of the affordable housing developers, who are keeping customer preferences on the forefront are succeeding in this sector while most of the others are not.”

About Knight Frank: Knight Frank LLP is the leading independent global property consultancy. Headquartered in London, Knight Frank has more than 18,170 people operating from over 523 offices across 60 markets. These figures include Newmark Grubb Knight Frank in the Americas, and Douglas Elliman Fine Homes in the USA. The Group advises clients ranging from individual owners and buyers to major developers, investors and corporate tenants. For further information about the Company, please visit www.knightfrank.com.

In India, Knight Frank is headquartered in Mumbai and has more than 1,000 experts across Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. Backed by strong research and analytics, our experts offer a comprehensive range of real estate services across advisory, valuation and consulting, transactions (residential, commercial, retail, hospitality, land & capitals), facilities management and project management. For more information, visit  http://www.knightfrank.co.in/

About RICS: RICS promotes and enforces the highest professional qualifications and standards in the valuation, development and management of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure. Our name promises the consistent delivery of standards – bringing confidence to markets and effecting positive change in the built and natural environments.