market analysis

Market analysis in Nepalese context:
The Location Factor
The prospective buyers of high rise apartments are mostly varied from middle class to upper class to high class. As per as location of the project site - almost everyone prefers a location within the Ring Road – a desire probably based on the lack of facilities and infrastructure outside it. Therefore the apartments within ring road are more preferable by the buyers.
The Design Factor
The other issue buyers are concerned about is the number of bedrooms, and here, the culture of design is usually 2 to 4 bedrooms. Among the apartment complexes that are coming up, Park View Horizon at Dhapasi, offers an extra with a total of 5 bedrooms in their design, which could be attractive for those with large families - except for the price tag. Although it lies outside the Ring Road, the price range of these apartments is such that it caters to buyers in the upper income group only. Hence if it is to be argued as above with respect to the site location, it becomes questionable as to the method of pricing adopted.

Sometimes even the design as well as the project scheme can make the cost go high. For instance the apartments at Central Park, offered by Clean Developers Pvt. Ltd., have brought in the internationally recognized ARCOP Associates from Delhi - a Canadian based design firm. The project, supported by Triodos Bank of Netherlands (who invest in sustainable real estate solutions), quotes “One with nature – energy efficient green homes”, with ‘Green’ denoting reduction of energy consumption. Although the term ‘Green’ does include a lot of other factors, working on this design principal can dramatically reduce the running cost of the apartment, even though the initial cost becomes relatively high.
The Investment Factor
The general trend of housing is targeting the upper middle class to high class people. This group of people is a class normally well established in society. They do have the buying capacity but most buy the property more as an investment possibility. Although the loans provided by banks seem to be relatively secure as they are against the mortgage of property, too much liquidity could make the bank difficult to sustain.

Nowadays bank loans are easily accessed, which is one major selling factor. Hence with minimum investment, one can easily opt to buy a house or an apartment. But this too has had little effect in bringing down the cost and the range of affordability is still high. To make it reachable to all income level groups, some effort from the government side is required. For instance, developing required infrastructure, like access roads and providing water and electricity would free the developers from adding these costs onto the project and more effort could be concentrated into land development and planning. The user occupancy will increase only when the houses and flats are economically reachable to all interested, potential buyers.

The Facilities Factor

Moving on to other issues that the buyers were concerned about were the orientation of the building, parking facilities, potable water, fire protection, earthquake safety and not to forget Vaastu. Most Developers do cater to and have a ready answer as to having ample space for parking, but with added cost to the apartment/home price. Fire protection system and earthquake resistance also seem to be provided for, as it is a mandatory requirement in the building byelaws. However, whether these vital safety measures have been actually implemented during construction phase remains a matter of faith, since there is no monitoring system from the authorities.

As for Vaastu, most buyers seem so overwhelmed by it that the developers have no option than to confirm its incorporation one way or the other. In fact, some even claim 100 % compliance to the design principles of Vaastu! Unfortunately, this added requirement confines the architect on planning possibilities, which at times become impractical and illogical to give justice to the final design. Vaastu, as we all know, originated from South India. Its design principles are based on the Hindu religion and seem to follow solutions to climatic conditions of this hot region. Therefore, as an example, how logical it would be to place maximum openings and balconies towards the North in this predominantly cold region is a matter of the designer’s conscience and the owners acceptance. The upcoming KL Residency promoted by Dugar Group promises a different project with maximum incorporation of Vaastu. No doubt it will be different from that of the others, but at the same time, it will also be very different from Kathmandu context as well.
Buildings as such have to respond to nature, to the climate, the environment and culture it belongs to, and it should not be blatantly driven by some kind of alien factor as such. Rather, we should have our own socially and culturally driven principles that can guide us to being smart and wise to make decisions as what we want and what we need to avoid. In fact, maybe we need our own Kathmandu based Vaastu!!

One of the most serious issues of community housing is its water supply provision. With the authorities being unable to provide even a reasonable quantity of potable water to its existing subscribers, developers are left with little option than to opt for other means for the same – primarily, shallow or deep boring. While almost every developer has deep boring as an alternative solution for unavailability of government water supply, every second house either has a shallow well or a bore hole. The extent of water being drawn out from the ground is indeed alarming, and with no statistics nor government policy to bind and control its haphazard use, long term consequences could be unimaginably disastrous. However, there is a cyclic remedy which could contribute partially to its sustainability to certain limits and that is the rain water harvesting technique. Every responsible citizen must take the initiative of rain water harvesting - be it from the house-hold level or from huge community dwellings. Rain Water Harvesting is a system to capture the rain water when it rains; store that water above ground or charge the underground; and use it later when required. This is a natural phenomenon in open rural areas. But where cities are congested and over-paved, it is necessary to devise methods and plan according to capture the rain water as it falls. Nature is there to be used but not exploited.
The Apartment Factor
The apartment trend is an avant-grade culture and is getting popular for many reasons. Transformation in social behavior, busy working life, unavailability of land and a better solution for occupancy in a highly congested city, could be some of the issues for people being attracted to such living. However, in a society so steeped in culture and tradition like ours, the nature of settlement pattern is completely different. This implies that in our case, living in apartments is rather a forced culture. But everything is changing and nobody can confront these changes that time brings along with it. People need to adjust accordingly and change their behavior to adapt to the surroundings which therefore gives rise to a new generation.