Global Survey identifies health & hygiene amenities as an untapped opportunity in SA property market

As South Africa’s property market evolves, property developers, owners and managers look to property designs that will enhance property value and attract the most interest from potential tenants.

A recent survey – the 2013 Global Tenant Survey by the Building Owners & Managers Association International (BOMA) – identified health and hygiene amenities as a latent opportunity for property developers and owners. The BOMA survey indicated that health and hygiene features correlated strongly with tenant satisfaction offering an opportunity to increase property value especially as hygiene amenities are often rare in buildings in South Africa.

This coupled with the finding that South African tenants are the least satisfied out of the countries surveyed sheds light on the importance of designing and developing a property that speaks to the current needs of users.

According to Hygizone, the South African innovator in toilet design, bathrooms are often the least considered spaces in building design. “The BOMA survey confirms that tenants across the world, as well as in South Africa, are looking for spaces that take account of their changing wants. The unlikely space in any building, i.e. the bathroom, is now seen as the ‘trump card’ in enhancing the value proposition of properties for developers and owners alike,” says Dylan Ross-Kent, Founder and CEO of Hygizone.

Eighty percent of tenants surveyed consider customer service reputation as a priority factor in selecting a space to occupy while sixty six percent of respondents indicated that environmentally sustainable building operations are important to them.

“We are seeing an increase in appetite for our odourless and bacteria-reducing toilet system across commercial and residential developers. Major developers that have included the system in property projects across the country include Atterbury Properties, Growthpoint Properties and Redefine Property and we are currently involved in the 90 Grayston Drive upgrade.”

As current tenants expect an increase in headcount in the next year (i.e. twenty five percent of respondents), property developers and owners should have the foresight to prepare for possible lease opportunities in the coming year by generating value through property enhancements that match tenant desires.