Construction starts, Confidence up and Buying Booms

Long time ago, when developers were not that established and risks of them running away with your money is high, typically the buyers would only buy once the construction starts. That’s when they have confidence that the developer really can start the project. Ok, does starting the project meant they would complete it? I do not want to answer but my friend’s apartment in Penang was already 12 storeys tall when the developer ran away. The theory was, if they start construction, people would come and buy confidently. Today, every few days, if you are subscribed to Facebook pages of say, Property Talk and Lifestyle Malaysia, you see new projects being launched. Yes, that’s every few days.
Today, if your project is ‘pre-launched’ or ‘soft-launched’, it will already be covered by many online medias, unless you sue every site which publishes information about your project. What that means is that the engagement must start right from the beginning, especially if your project is said to be one of the largest of its kind and involves a long term integrated development approach. It is considered very ignorant, not to mention arrogant if you say, ‘no need to advertise, buyers will buy when construction starts’. This is exactly what a senior management of a developer company said. For his company’s sake, I hope that he is right because the project that this developer is building is huge and the competition for them is also tough.
If you said your project is high end, luxury residential project, please do not scrimp on the marketing materials that you do. If you must do newspaper, it should be a full page, full colour on a Saturday. It must never ever be a half-page black and white. Hope you remember you have allocated the budget for this and the higher GDV, the higher the budget? If you are targeting foreigners and when you go out of Malaysia, you print better materials, then shame on you. Better not let the ‘foolish’ locals know about this too.
Okay, I am not a developer. However, I am a buyer and if you do not give me a good feeling about the project that I am going to buy, I will not buy. If your project has been selling for over 9 months and you are STILL selling it, try others. I also would not buy it. Stop being arrogant and just do a good job. When you do a good job, people will buy and they will follow you.
To developers who are still having the mindset from yesterday, I can only wish you the best.
written on 19 June 2014
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