By Heather Rose
At the beginning of last year, many of the giant condominium projects that were underway at the time were suffering delays, going over budget and falling prey to the recession.
This year, the last six weeks alone have seen 18 or so condominium projects about to be launched in Toronto that will serve a large variety of buyers – from retirees to first-time buyers to those looking for a luxury property in the sky.
One of the prime differences with some of these condominiums is the way that these suites are advertised. Instead of a gigantic, expensive public launch party and media campaign to gain interested buyers in order to get enough suites sold to begin building, soft launches seem to be a better option.
A soft launch is when a developer might have a more closed-doors meeting with investors, industry contacts or people who’ve mentioned they’d like to live in one of the developer’s projects but previously passed in order to drum up enough interest. This way, higher unprecedented costs aren’t passed on to the end buyer of the condo suites and the buyers can have their properties at a more standard rate.
The soft launches provide more necessary up-front sales that gets the project completed faster with fewer delays, and is much cheaper than a media campaign that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, the new condo sales already hit a record in the Greater Toronto Area at the beginning of this year, up 491 per cent over the beginning of 2009 when the industry was hit the hardest. Price per square foot is also up almost $100 from last year, and an estimated 30 new large condominium projects are estimated to be getting their start in this quarter.
Heather Rose is a Toronto based Journalist, who is a regular contributor to the Muddy York Real Estate Blog. Heather website is located at heatherroseportfolio.squarespace.com.
