[Nathan]

Originally Posted by Neil

Yep I definitely get what you're saying. It's just that sometimes people don't go for the most sensible or best value. And sometimes they don't have a choice.

Your point is that you like the $300,000 price for a 900 sq foot downtown unit. But you'd also wait several years before putting money down.

However at $150,000 I suspect you might beg borrow or steal the money today for a deposit.

That's kind of my point. If they want a big bang and momentum, start at $150,000 and give off an impression of limited availability by selling floors 5 through 15. If they sell those all out and get some free PR of maybe some people lining up or even better, hope that some people start jostling each other in the line.

Once the hype machine is fully cranked up, then sell more premium units with extra goodies, perhaps adding $10,000 per floor.

You can always do freebies like fireplace, granite, etc. to close some sales. But they never want to be seen as lowering the price.

That's the playbook used for these projects elsewhere, I could see them trying it here. Though I could also see them just starting off asking top dollar on day one and wondering why sales are so slow off the bat.

It's all about creating a compelling value proposition, and I'm not sure small condos at $300,000 in the city center have mass appeal (yet).

You'd be right there... although the quality of the Westgate development is miles ahead of that proposed condo tower on Rose, Rose was priced in the 300K+ zone and units weren't really moving... and that project is all but dead because of it. I wonder if the research the Westgate developers have done into the market picked up on that project...