Heres an interesting article about developers who are spending up to $100,000 to help buyers imagine they’ve already moved in.
Below is an extract:
Discounts on new apartments, deals to pay stamp duty for buyers, special offers galore . . . With developers desperate for buyers of new apartment projects as the banks continue to rein in credit and with many consumers lacking the confidence to actually commit, there’s still one great weapon left in their armoury: the display suite.
Fitted out with top-quality designer furniture, painted in the latest stylish colour palettes, decorated often with original artwork and regularly finished down to the last detail with cutlery, glasses and plates, it’s guaranteed to leave every potential buyer salivating.
"Apartments look so different when they’re empty to when they’re well-furnished," says Andrew Finlayson of developer Carrington, with penthouses for sale at Kensington apartment complex Capella and Wahroonga’s Beumont both beautifully fitted out by stylists.
"It sets the mood and feel, and shows off the architecture of an apartment and it helps people get the sense of how much space is available."
Selling tools
In today’s soft property market, the chief executive of the developers’ lobby Urban Taskforce Australia, Aaron Gadiel, says display suites have never been more important as marketing tools. Today developers are under huge pressure to sell as many apartments as they can off the plan because of the credit crunch tightening bank finance.
"They’re not able to borrow as much as previously, so a good display suite is vital to enable them to sell as soon as possible," Gadiel says. "You’re seeing a lot more developers at the moment using them and their look, feel and quality are now much more important than ever."
At Mirvac’s new Springdale development in Killara, the display apartment cost between $80,000 and $100,000 to be fully furnished and decorated. Marketing director James Bell says the outlay, with apartments still for sale priced from $1,025,000 for two bedrooms and from $1.03 million for three, is absolutely worthwhile.
"If you’ve got good design, good finishes and a good location, it only makes your product even more attractive," he says.
At Beumont, where the three-bedroom-plus-study, three-bathroom penthouse is for sale at $2.5 million, spending about $80,000 on the display styled by Coco Republic was similarly worthwhile. By the same token, the fit-out of the three-bedroom-plus-study, two-bathroom Capella penthouse at $2.2 million was worth slightly less.
"You can fill a place up with utilitarian furniture but really you want people to feel they can see themselves in the space," Finlayson says.
"And you furnish according to the taste of your target demographic."
How to read a display suite
It’s all very well to fall in love with the look of an apartment display suite but don’t forget: love can be blind. Craig Yelland and Ian Briggs of Plus Architecture advise:
- Take a tape measure.
- Understand how an apartment is measured - mostly from mid-wall to the middle of the party wall.
- Confirm the ceiling heights in the display suite are the same as in the end product.
- Check the size of the beds. Double beds make rooms look bigger because they are smaller but many people assume they’re queens.
- Work out whether your fridge will fit in the fridge well.
- Don’t assume what you see is what you’ll get. What are the standard finishes and optional extras? Ask lots of questions to find out exactly what you’re buying.
- Check what you can’t see. Are the walls strong enough to hold a plasma television? Test the firmness of the vanity basin.
- Ask if there are enough power points in every room. In bathrooms and kitchens particularly, adding extras can end up costing thousands.
- Make sure the lift is big enough to fit your couch and fridge.
- Don’t forget to check other items such as the communal gym and pool, strata fees, location and local amenities.
Paul Castran.