Criteria for choosing a flat or house in Katowice and the advantages of the chosen listing
Text from 2015. Laws, rates and prices may have changed since then. Ask an agent
Criteria for choosing a flat or house in Katowice and the advantages of the selected listing
Buying a new flat is not a decision a client makes overnight. The purchase decision depends on certain factors, which will be described in detail later in this article. These are the client's specific preferences, which influence their selection criteria. These, in turn, relate to the buyers' expectations and needs regarding their new flat.
If you find out what guides your clients when they choose a flat and what most influences their decision on whether to buy a given property, it will be much easier for you to create a listing tailored to the buyers' current needs. As a result, you will sell your property not only faster, but also at a greater profit.
What guides your client?
Recently TNS carried out a study, commissioned by the Otodom.pl portal, concerning preferences and satisfaction with buying a flat. The preferences of a group of several hundred people living in the five largest cities in Poland were analysed.
It turned out that the most important criterion for the buyer was price, as this answer was chosen by as many as 68% of people. An equally important criterion was the location of the property, which was ticked by 55% of respondents.
The next factors that influenced the decision to buy a flat were: the floor area of the property, including the number of rooms (33%), a suitable layout of the rooms, and good transport links (20%). A smaller share of people wanted to know whether the property was on the primary or the secondary market.
Interestingly, buyers were least interested in information about parking spaces, fencing, or special infrastructure for children.
How can this be used in practice? The key is, above all, a detailed description of the property: where it is located, what its floor area is, how many rooms it has, what the layout is, and how much it costs. Today's buyers are interested above all in "what" they are paying for and "how much". If your listing is attractive in this respect, and the client receives all the information on the subject, you increase your chances of selling the property several times over.
Only after describing the location and price in detail is it worth turning to the surroundings of the flat, that is, the supporting infrastructure. However, the two criteria above (price, location) are the deciding factors when choosing a property.
Location – what does the client pay attention to?
Buyers are interested in the distance from the flat to work, school, university, supermarkets and shops. However, much more important to the client is information on whether getting to these places is trouble-free and whether the location has good public transport links. It is also important to know what the journey to a given place is like by private transport.
It is worth itemising and emphasising the above information in your listing. This means all the main facilities located close to the property, and travel distances expressed as approximate journey times to particular places.
Depending on whether you are targeting your listing at students or at working people, you should emphasise the information that will be most important for the particular groups. Information about the commute to universities, workplaces, schools, libraries, entertainment, sports and recreation centres, supermarkets or shops will affect the attractiveness of the listing. If there are green areas nearby, it is worth mentioning this too, as 33% of respondents would like to live close to recreational areas.
It may seem that the most attractive properties are located in the centre, but this is not entirely true. Owners whose properties are outside the centre are by no means in a worse position. It turns out that convenient access matters more than the distance from the destination.
What is more, as many as 37% of respondents are looking for a location outside the centre. Buyers are put off by traffic, noise and excessive pollution. In such a case, as much attention as possible should be devoted to transport connections, stressing ways of getting there by both public and private transport.
What do experts say about the report?
As the above examples show, the beliefs an investor may hold about the attractiveness of a given listing do not always go hand in hand with the reasons for which buyers purchase a property. Even a fence, which was meant to give a greater sense of security and thus boost sales, is now losing importance for buyers. For developers this is valuable information, because "gated" estates do not necessarily bring the expected returns on investment and are by no means a deciding factor when buying a flat. It is worth stressing that investing in more expensive flats located on gated estates will not necessarily pay off.
A buyer's decision on whether to buy a given property is based above all on the location of the flat. Only then does the client assess their financial means and choose a listing they can afford.
Looking at the Katowice market in the light of these findings, it is worth considering buying a flat as an investment in the city centre, in Koszutka, on the Tysiąclecia Estate, and in Brynów. The districts mentioned stand out for very good transport links, a location close to the centre, and relatively low rents, which depend on the floor area (approx. 700-2,400 PLN).
On the other hand, in the light of this research, investing in Dębowe Tarasy does not seem entirely advantageous. Although the estate stands out for unusual features that increase residents' comfort, such as fencing, 24-hour security, car parks and publicly accessible garages, this does not necessarily translate into interest in the properties. The price of renting or buying a property, despite the good location, may seem too high for the average buyer. As a result, selling a flat in that area may prove too great a challenge, one that will not translate into satisfying profits.
To sum up, the results of the study are no great surprise, as they are similar to those obtained the previous year. However, it is clear that the price of a flat is increasingly becoming a factor that prevents buyers from purchasing their dream property. Developers in particular must pay attention to this.
