A market research study for the development of container housing units for the Ashesi community
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Abstract
A new real estate developer is seeking to build container housing units as housing
accommodation for students, staff and faculty of Ashesi University College, one of Ghana’s
leading private universities. To fulfill this, the developer needs to have knowledge of the target
market, trends in existing housing accommodation and understand the potential of their project
compared with competitive developments. Thus, the goal of this project is to conduct a market
research study to provide insights into the Ashesi community to aid in the redefining of the
developer’s idea, opportunities within the target market and challenges that can be pre-empted.
In conducting this market research, data was sourced from the Ghana Building Code; a building
technologist; an architect; a design enthusiast; an operations manager and current and potential
users of this development. Research methods took the form of literature reviews, desk research
and guided interviews.
It was found that for a developer considering constructing housing accommodation would have
to mimic to an extent the features that currently exists in competitive developments. References
to existing features in the various competing developments is to aid the client in understanding
buyers’ expectations. Also, the dominant influencing factors for housing were price, proximity
to the Ashesi University Campus and availability of desired amenities. Majority of student
respondents were willing to pay between 2,500 - 4, 500 cedis and majority of the staff and
faculty who partook in this research were willing to pay below 500 cedis for a housing unit
constructed from containers.