Managing director's note: Which future will you choose?

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Survey: What homeowners want in STRATA HIGH-RISE LIVING — now and in the future

A place to live well, rooted in sustainability

Are we back to “normal”? Were our habits during the pandemic only temporary? It doesn’t feel that way. With that in mind, we recently asked our EdgeProp.my users some questions to tease out their strata-living preferences. The results were enlightening. Notably, 74% strongly felt their building conditions and common spaces significantly impact their quality of life. There is no more compelling rationale for homes to be designed and built for sustainability than this fact.

Good property management is a team effort. It cannot be accomplished within the silos of authorities, developers or property managers. As individual homebuyers, making informed investments can have profound implications down the line, affecting key areas such as maintainability, wellness and cost. Instead of waiting for what comes next, we should take charge of our future.

Economics teaches us that decision making is about trade-offs. By wanting everything, we often end up getting nothing. This survey matters because it tells us people are not only making new choices about how they want to live but also that distinctive trade-offs accompany each choice. It shows us the price people are willing to pay for sustainability, reliability and convenience.

This problem is not hard to fix. The range of solutions available in the property management space has never been more vast. The confluence of AI advancement and the pandemic has accelerated trends towards greater innovation and efficiency in all industries including real estate. The benefits, if imagined and implemented to their full potential, could be immense.

This is why we have partnered with Lendlease, a globally integrated real estate group, for this survey. We hope to draw on their global competence to help envision what is possible for Malaysians. I have seen firsthand their willingness to go beyond conventions and their commitment to exceeding their homebuyers’ expectations, which I admire.

There are two ways to go from here. First, this could become another survey soon forgotten. Or, it could serve as an impetus to advocate and build more sustainable strata- living options for the common good. The choice is ours to make. Which future will you choose?

Alvin Ong is the managing director of EdgeProp Malaysia.

Download the full report here.