Managing director Sutee Ketsiri yesterday said political uncertainty and the economic slow-down had made a negative impact on the home-building industry, because consumers were delaying decisions on investing in new-house construction.

To make its products more attractive, the company has designed new houses under what it calls a "Super Save" concept, offering two-storey detached houses costing less than Bt1 million a unit.

"Customers who previously had the purchasing power to construct two-storey detached houses priced up to Bt2 million have had to reduce their construction budget to less than Bt2 million, so we decided to develop six new two-storey detached houses priced from Bt995,000 to Bt1.3 million a unit, to drive our revenues in the second half of the year," he said.

Bangkok House Builder announced total first-quarter revenues of Bt45 million, falling short of its target of Bt50 million. However, the company believes its new Super Save models will allow full-year revenues to meet the target of Bt200 million.

"We believe the Super Save models will meet the strong demand by customers in the middle- to lower-income groups wanting to construct their own houses at reasonable prices," he said.

The market for houses priced lower than Bt1 million is about 30 per cent of the total home-building market in Bangkok and the surrounding area, which has a total value of Bt35 billion a year, he said.

By expanding into a Bt10.5-billion market, Bangkok House Builder believes its revenues will be driven to meet its full-year target, although its net profit may fall from about 8 per cent to 5-6 per cent.

"We'll focus on volume rather than value by offering the Super Save models, because they'll generate a net profit of only 5 per cent. We want to drive our revenues to meet our target of 11-per-cent growth this year," he said.

Somluck Srimalee

The Nation