Equity residential price rise looks likely

Property company Equity Residential is considering increasing its prices by between 5 and 10 per cent after its first condominium project - My Resort Bangkok - succeeded in sell¬ing 60 per cent of its 587 units after opening for presales in March.

Rising construction costs have already forced the company to adjust its selling prices twice since the project launch, from Bt60,000 per square metre to the current Bt70,000.

It may up its prices by a further 5 to 10 per cent in the final quarter of the year.

The company expects the proj¬ect to sell out by yearend follow¬ing the appointment of Knight Frank Chartered (Thailand) as its sales agent, Equity Residential director MR Sasijutapa Varavarn said yesterday.

The major stake in Equity Residential, which has registered capital of Bt300 million, is held by the Varavarn family. The company bought My Resort Bangkok - locat¬ed on Phetchaburi Road in Bangkok - from Siam Commercial Bank last year and started to rebuild the proj¬ect in March. The project was pre¬viously owned by the Techapaiboon family. Sasijutapa declined to dis¬close the company's investment budget for rebuilding the project, but did say it expected a gross mar¬gin of up to 30 per cent and a net profit of nearly 10 per cent.

More than half the investment will be in the form of a bank loan, she said.

She added that the company also planned to develop other residen¬tial projects when My Resort Bangkok, which is worth Bt1.6 bil¬lion, is complete.

"Our family has some undevel¬oped land in Bangkok and the provinces that has the potential for developing residential projects, but we have to wait and see the market feedback when we launch our first project," she said.

My Resort Bangkok has two 35storey buildings, one with 206 units and the other with 381. Both one and twobedroom condos are avail¬able, with utilisation space of between 38 and 157 square metres. Prices start at Bt2.8 million per unit.

Construction will be complete by the end of next year.