Security is top concern for home buyers: Lamudi

A house-hunter's decision on where to live is driven by security concerns, trumping over other factors like location and affordability, according to a new report on Bangladesh's property market.

The observations came from a research from global property website Lamudi, which released its first annual report recently.

The report, Real Estate in the Emerging Markets, provides a comprehensive overview of the property sector in 16 emerging countries, including Bangladesh, it said in a statement yesterday.

The report is based on a series of online surveys conducted with house-hunters and real estate agents, as well as onsite data from Lamudi's global network of websites, it said.

The research examined the habits of online property-seekers, to buy and rent, while offering insight into the future of the property sector based on interviews and surveys with local property experts.

Safety emerged as the most important factor for those looking for a new home, with location of the property ranking second, and affordability and cost constraints coming in third, Lamudi said.

Factors such as lifestyle and cultural options rated poorly among property seekers, the report found.

The second survey, targeting real estate agents, revealed the extent to which the property market has moved online.

Nearly three-quarters of brokers surveyed said the internet is now often used in the house-hunting process, while 27 percent said it was sometimes used, Lamudi said.

Around 97 percent of agents surveyed said the internet would become more popular among house-hunters over the next decade, it found.

“The primary conclusion that we have drawn from our research is that the future of Bangladesh's property sector is extremely bright,” said Kian Moini, Lamudi's global co-founder, in the statement.

Over the next decade, as property prices rise in Dhaka, new growth areas are expected to emerge, like Uttara, Dhaka's biggest satellite town, and become increasingly popular with those looking to buy or rent a house, Moini added.

Liakat Ali Bhuiyan, vice president of Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh, was interviewed for his insight into the sector as part of the report.

Bhuiyan nominated Dhaka and Chittagong as having top investment opportunities that have multiple advantages such as roads, flyovers and train services. “These cities are also important for commercial purposes, and the middle class is growing fast in both these cities.”

The 16 countries covered in the report are Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mexico and Colombia.