Builders and developers are looking at a positive landscape—one created by a healthy economy and being thoughtfully governed by regulatory bodies and financing entities to avoid the risk of another recession.
In this type of environment, housing is in high demand but, at the same time, builders sense high risks. Fortunately, immense amounts of data are available on demand to help sort through the various factors in determining what markets to build in.
Steve Patterson, president and CEO of Miami-based Related Development, is taking advantage of that real-time data as the company expands West, targeting areas with job growth and, more importantly, the potential for rent growth.
According to Metrostudy data, the estimated job growth for 2018 cross the country shows that the top four markets are out West, along with three others in the top 12. Those markets also show strong projected job growth for the next five years.
Related Development has a sophisticated formula for targeting development areas, using real-time understanding of markets. And even then, Patterson says, there's still the need to differentiate one's company with design. In the short video below, Patterson discusses the process, and the challenges, of differentiation.
Part of the formula of differentiation for Related is finding ways to contribute to the local economy, which can be an obvious attraction to residents, and can have other implications, like helping strengthen neighborhoods and communities.
Such differentiation often means relying on talented design professionals to create an emotive experience for the resident. Delivering an emotionally responsive design starts with Related Development’s unique approach for each project, coined the “Unique Selling Proposition" (USP), which structures the process of building the competitive landscape, formalizing the pricing, and determining the product features. The USPs then become a tremendously valuable asset for the specific project they're related to and as they're shared companywide for general learning.
“Each project has a unique project executive leader and a talented team to execute this effort,” says Patterson about the cross-functional team that includes an architect, a market research consultant, and internal team members.
“I personally get involved in every project at the USP strategy stage," Patterson says. "This is an area that has room for improvement for us, and we're currently elevating the importance and timing of this process. We all accept that we must differentiate to realize better-than-average results. The desire for superior results and putting the effort forward to achieve this is in our Related DNA.”
Related also carefully considers the resident experience by surveying its residents, along with residents from competitive properties, to understand their preferences and pricing tolerances. Once again, the proprietary survey results are shared with a large group to make sure the team leverages the valuable feedback and gets it baked into the relevant project’s USP strategies.
As housing demand inspires more development, differentiation will be a critical element of success.
