Survey shows health, hygiene facilities lift value of property

THE 2013 Global Tenant Survey by the Building Owners and Managers Association International (Boma) has identified health and hygiene amenities as a latent opportunity for property developers and owners.

The survey showed that most tenants value health and hygiene features when considering properties. In a country where tenants showed the least satisfaction with properties, it is a gap in the market that has yet to be fully leveraged.

As SA’s property market evolves, property developers, owners and managers look to designs that will enhance property value and attract the most interest from potential tenants, so they will do well to prioritise health and hygiene amenities.

Hygizone CEO Dylan RossKent says often bathrooms are the least-considered rooms in commercial developments, and this should change if property developers and owners look to enhance tenant satisfaction and maintain a valuable asset as tastes and needs of tenants in SA evolve.

The 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 SA.

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 needs of users.

“The Boma survey confirms that tenants across the world, as well as in SA, are looking for spaces that take account of their changing wants. The unlikely space in any building, ie the bathroom, is now seen as the ‘trump card’ in enhancing the value proposition of properties for developers and owners alike,” Mr Ross-Kent says.

According to the survey, 80% of tenants surveyed consider customer service reputation as a priority factor in selecting a space to occupy, while 66% 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,” he says.