At the latest full members meeting, @joannes argued that the price of units in The Reef are reasonable. This does not come across because of the way we present our prices as all inclusive – which is rational in itself, but it is not how people are accustomed to seeing prices of real estate in Brussels.
Building on that idea, I spent an hour researching for apartments for sale in Brussels that might be comparable to those in The Reef. “Comparable” is defined as newly built, and with PEB class A or close to (immo sites often advertise something as “PEB A” in the card on the search results; when you clock through and read the text, it says “A- or B+”, or “A/B”, or “A-”. But OK).
Here is what I found from a sample of 9 offers on Trevi, from 1 to 3 bedrooms:
These apartments are offered with finishing included, VAT and notary costs not included.
I can’t find any new construction project offering a garden in Brussels. Likely a major asset, especially for families (@Hannah ).
All except one have PEB lower than A proper.
Average price per m2 (computed as above) is 4,310 EUR. Excluding two offers that are quite far from the city centre you get to 4,345 EUR.
I wonder if it would make sense to make a slide for @Lee to present, comparing 2/3 of these to the corresponding Reef offers? The message could be: it costs the same, but with us you get a 1,000 m2 garden, the common spaces, a A+ PEB and a community. With them, the promoter gets to make a profit.
Joannes, maybe you can draw on your design skills to make such a slide? My data are in a new folder on Reef value in the Team External folder: Login – Nextcloud.
Another element of the messaging: if people like cohousing, we are basically the only game in town.
So, summarizing, maybe something like this:
List the prices (finishing included, no TVA, no notary costs) of the units we still have available.
Mention the range of prices offered by Trevi for comparable units (in my sample, that is 3,333 to 5,177), and show that they are within that range.
Make a couple of comparisons one 3-bedroom per one 3-bedroom, one 2-bedroom per one 2-bedroom. I would do this in absolute numbers, because Reef units are generally a bit smaller, so the price per m2 does not do justice to the comparison.
Point out what you get with The Reef that you don’t with a commercial promoter: a large garden, PEB of A+, common spaces, inclusivity, and, above all, a community to welcome you.
Thanks, Alberto, great work! The garden is indeed an incomparable asset, especially since newly built apartment complexes by real estate companies mostly have no shared outside space or have a shared outside space that is designed to be low maintenance and to be as unattractive possible for actually using it.
Another price argument: the finishings with real estate projects might be included, but they include mostly only the bare basics for bathroom, kitchen, doors and floors. You need to put extra money for decent finishings.
Adding a reference point: some time ago there was a unit for sale in De Spiegel. It was 84 m² and the selling price was 425k. Adding registration rights and fees (33k) that makes 458k, or 5450 euro / m².
Also flagging that we already have a slide that points out many of the arguments above, and that I spent quite some time during the presentation to explain this:
I also want to reiterate my objection about omitting the VAT from the prices we would advertise. We really want people to get the reality check of the price as soon as possible.
It is not because for some people it took some time to accept the price, to realise “this is a bit higher than I was planning to spend”, that this is true for other people as well. Some people realise that this is more than they were planning to spend, and walk away. In many cases it will not be possible to convince them, and rightfully so.
For me the point where to put our energy, is to find households with a double above the median income, and to pitch to them the concept of a cohousing. Going for the cohousing people and deceive them about the price is not going to be very effective.
What we want to avoid at all cost, is people who fall in love with the project (which we have seen far too often) who then enjoy being an Associate Member for three months, and then walk away. This doesn’t only cost us time and energy we don’t have, but also three months to adjust our course.
If nevertheless changing the way the prices are advertised is the chosen way forward, I would really like my concern to be measured and mitigated. Options include:
Set a period during which we would try this, and then evaluate.
Implement the policy that is already supposed to be in place, which is to do interviews with Associate Members every month (reminder for @reef-recruitment).
Turn the Full Membership fee into some sort of reservation fee, and ask Associate Members to pay this after two months (so as to force them to think about the money).
Agree with Alberto as well. For info, this is how Vaneau Lecobel -I don’t even know why I receive this newsletter -presents prices. There is an asterisk to the TVA.
This is not what Alberto is proposing, and something I am raising a concern about. If this is the chosen way forward (for me this is in the domain of Team R&O btw), then I would like to see my concern addressed, as suggested above.
