Study on trend analysis of apartment housing by private developers in DCC area

Abstract

The housing situation in Bangladesh has never been satisfactory. The tremendous presence of population in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, has created housing problem which is very difficult to solve. To accommodate the growing population, both public and private sector are involved in the housing market of Dhaka. In Bangladesh, large scale involvement of private developers in housing sector is a recent phenomenon, although such activities started sometime in 1964. According to Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB), at present, there are about 460 developers and at least 420 of them are based in Dhaka city. Over the period, apartment housing by private sector experienced many changes in various aspects such as location of apartment projects, apartment size, plot size, client group, price of apartments etc. Definitely some forces influence these changes and these are carefully considered by private developers, who are basically the decision makers in private sector housing in the city. In this background, this research is an endeavor to study the trend of apartment housing by private developers in Dhaka. The main focuses of this research are: (i) to study the trend of location of apartment housing in Dhaka since 1990 (ii) to analyze the variation in size and price of apartments in the city (iii) to study the focuses responsible for such changes occurring in the apartment housing sector. Primarily 20 developers were selected on the basis of their experience and volume of works; around 1,000 apartment projects completed by these selected developers since 1990 have been taken as a representative sample for this research. Data on plot size, access road width, apartment size, etc. for the sample projects has been collected from them. To be logical statistically, additional 10 developers have been selected later and a questionnaire survey was mainly conducted on total 30 developers to explore the third focus of the research. The study faced problems in collecting different information due to unwillingness of disclosing some data by the private developers. Moreover, most of the private developers do not feel necessary keeping record of the handed over projects. Economic perspective is not also covered in this research as it needs separate attention. Resident perspective is very important for understanding the factors behind the demand and supply situation which is considered to be embedded in developers view in this research, this issue needs more attention. This research had to depend on the publications and seminar papers for the information particularly on price trend. The study has shown the direction of growth and distribution of apartments in the city. The research has revealed various findings on location aspects such as decreasing plot size, width of access roads, development of smaller apartments, etc. The small plots have been found in unplanned areas which are below 3 kathas in area. Many of the apartment projects have been built in the roads having less than standard 6 metres width. The variation in size and price of apartment units in different location and time has been noticed from which some idea about change in the client group is understood. The driving forces behind such changes in apartment housing sector have been brought out from developers’ perspectives. The main driving forces are unavailability of land, high land price, profit by the developers, affordability and increasing housing demand of middle income group, availability of housing loans, etc. A comprehensive understanding from this study of present trend would help the decision makers and planners to formulate policies to deal with the housing issue more cautiously.