A MARKET AND MARKETING RESEARCH FOR A RESIDENTIAL SITE IN HILLVIEW

Abstract

Marketing is often mistaken as the mere process of selling or promoting something for sale in the market. However, this view of marketing must be corrected as it involves much more than just that. Marketing, as defined in various books on the subject, is the process of satisfying human needs and wants profitably. This means that the product offered for sale must both meet market desires and at the same time fulfil the profit objective of the seller. Therefore marketing involves the satisfaction of mutual benefits of the seller and the purchaser of a product. Firms that adopt this marketing concept of selling their products are considered as taking an outside-in approach, ie. they find out what customers need and want and translate these into the development of products to satisfy the customers. To apply the above concept to property development, marketing considerations would have to precede construction. The rationale is that to cater to what property purchasers want, their desires would first have to be established so that they would guide development ideas on what to build to satisfy the purchasers. However, this may not be what is practised by some developers, who proceed to construct their development and thereafter attempt to market it. In economies of scarcity or where the real estate market is booming, the sale of such developments may not encounter much difficulties. However, during a slump or in the face of a competitive market where most developments comprise features desired by the market, developers who rely on their instinct to build would find that their project would not perform well. This dissertation therefore seeks to apply the concepts of marketing in deciding what to build on a residential site in Hillview. After undertaking a research to ascertain market desires, proposals have been made for the development of the subject site to meet the needs and wants of the market.