Sansiri upbeat on prospects for 2012
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Developer intends to make changes in design to help cope with floods, although this might push up costs
New city plans and zoning will have to change after floods hit residential locations more than floodways, Sansiri president Srettha Thavisin said in an interview on Monday.
Property firms, too, have to revise their business model, especially the location and design to survive future floods.
He said that after the floods hit Bangkok and its suburbs the business model had to be changed. The focus of locations for developing residential projects had to be changed from the main road and the mass transit system to both, as well as to locations that were spared the flooding.
Property developers have to redesign the project landscape and residential design to take the possibility of flooding into account.
Landscape designs should not only increase landfill but it will have to build a flood system around the project.
“We have appointed professionals for flood-landscape design, to study how to design our residential projects so that both low-rise and high-rise residences are able to cope if there are floods,” he said.
He added that the company is also redesigning its residences to have floodways.
“When we redesign our projects, our costs will go up, but we have to do that to ensure a sustainable residence for our buyers,” he said.
However, whether the price of residences will increase due to the rise in construction cost will depend on the location and competition in the market, he said.
Recovery in 2012
The new designs will be launched in the market next year. He believes the property market in 2012 will be better than this year when the floods resulted in the sales dropping more than 20 per cent in the last quarter of this year compared with the same period of last year.
“We believe that most of the home-buyers who delayed their decision to buy residences and transfer the projects will now start to buy and transfer the projects in the first quarter of next year. This will drive market growth next year compared with this year,” he said.
Meanwhile, the demand to buy residences will not change when compared with this year. Home-buyers who enjoy living in single detached houses or townhouses will continue to buy property of their choice, just as those who love condominiums would still buy condos. But people may become more choosy about the location, ensuring it was not an area prone to flood threats.
Some locations that faced flooding are inhabited by traditional communities hence the demand to buy residences in such locations may not change, but home-buyers will choose projects by property firms who take care of their customers during times of flooding, he said.
He added that the company had spent Bt50 million to support its customers during the flooding since September this year by buying sandbags, pumps etc before the floods hit Bangkok and its suburbs. The company also spent Bt200 million to help its staff and customers who were hit by the floods.
“Only four of our residential projects, from 168, were hit by the floods because we set up a protection system to help our customers,” he said.
Short of presales target
Regarding the market outlook for next year, Srettha said the company will continue to launch residential projects. It is planning 20 projects. Three projects will be those that were supposed to be launched in the last quarter of this year but deferred to next year.
“We are targeting pre-sales of Bt30 billion next year, although we fell short of our target this year, achieving Bt25 billion by the end of the year against the target of Bt27 billion. The floods hit demand for residences, leading to a fall in demand in the last quarter and also delayed the launch of three new residential projects in the last quarter of this year,” he said.
