A price war between property developers has set the stage for some of the best housing deals in recent months.
The developers, who are keen to boost their sales before the end of the year, have effectively reduced their resฌidential prices by 5 to 10 per cent. Some have launched aggressive marketing campaigns in a bid to clear inventories in existing residential projects.
One company is offering to make the first year's mortgage repayments on behalf of homebuyers, free of charge. Yet another is offering a zeropercent interest deal for the first year of ownership, and others are prepared to include free home decorative items to attract buyers.
The campaigns do not make direct cuts in residential prices out of conฌcern for homeowners who have already purchased residences in the same projects and would be upset to see the prices lowered. Nevertheless, the campaigns make indirect price cuts of between 5 and 10 per cent.
Sansiri has adopted an aggressive approach with a marketing campaign it calls "Paying Instalments for Homebuyers within the First Year". The company will pay monthly loan repayments over the first year of a mortgage for customers who buy and transfer a detached house before the end of this month.
The two banks participating in the campaign are Kasikornbank and Siam Commercial Bank.
Sansiri expects sales of Bt450 milฌlion from the campaign.
Senior marketing manager Samatcha Promsiri said the company opted for the campaign after seeing most visitors to its residential projects delaying their decisions to buy because of concern about their future earnฌings. Sansiri hopes the promotion will accelerate purchases and boost its sales before the end of the year.
Property market leader Land and Houses has launched a campaign called "LH Home Focus", which offers to move new owners' home contents into their new houses free of charge if they buy one of the company's detached houses priced between Bt2.79 million and Bt40 million.
The campaign aims to boost Land and Houses' sales to reach a target of Bt21 billion for the entire year. The company's sales fell short of its target in the first nine months.
LH Bank has joined Quality Houses to help celebrate the developer's 25th anniversary by offering a zeropercent interest rate for the first year of a mortgage.
Property Perfect is planning to redesign a new series of detached houses in existing projects so it can offer prices 10percent lower than the old models. This follows a drop of about 20 per cent in the company's construction costs, chief operating officer Teerachon Manomaiphibul said.
He said the company could not simply cut the price of its oldermodel detached houses because customers who had bought the same houses at the old price would feel bad about it.
"We have to redesign before reducฌing our detachedhousing prices. This is one of our marketing strategies to boost sales in the last quarter of the year, because our presales are below target," he said.
Earlier this month, Property Perfect launched three new city conฌdominium projects with a market value of Bt12 billion. The company aimed to make grandopening preฌsales of Bt1 billion between November 7 and November 9, but succeeded in reaching only Bt800 million in the threeday event.
Analysing the new marketing strategies of property developers, market experts believe falling conฌsumer purchasing power has led to the start of a property price war.
Sansiri's campaign, in which it will pay monthly installments for new homebuyers over the first year of ownership, means the company is takฌing a cut of nearly 5 per cent in the price of its detached houses.
Land and Houses' marketing stratฌegy aims to reduce customers' costs, and Property Perfect's creation of a new design to enable lower prices is effectively a direct price cut of nearly 10 per cent.
"We will see more marketing camฌpaigns next year when purchasing power falls even further, and it will really look like a price war. Most developers need cash to maintain their businesses during a period of ecoฌnomic recession. As a result, this is a good time for homebuyers to be shopping around," the property expert said.
A price war between property developers has set the stage for some of the best housing deals in recent months.