Taylor Wimpey builds £2m marketing suite to combat slowing resi sales

The first phase of Taylor Wimpey’s Postmark Building in central London went on sale last week, aided by the largest marketing suite the company has ever had to build. Costing more than £2m, spanning 5,000 sq ft and rising four flours, the suite shows showcases the extra mile that developers are having to go to shift product in the difficult London sales market. A plush lounge, a wall of screens and clutch of sales assistants greet entrants to the suite, which aims to provide a customer journey, showcasing not only the development and local area but the lifestyle it promotes. Interactive displays show the exact schematics, views and proportions of the flats to the buyers before they are led upstairs to two show apartments, then finally to the roof terrace and accompanying bar, which gives panoramic views of the site and the Post Office Sorting Office next door. Slowing market The suite is to a large extent the result of the slowing new-build London sales market, which has been in the doldrums since the heady days of 2014 when buyers would put down deposits without even visiting schemes. According to Taylor Wimpey’s sales and marketing direction Darren McCormack, buyers need to see product now. As buyers have become more cautious and sophisticated, developers have had to put more effort into sales. Taylor Wimpey bought the Postmark, also known as Mount Pleasant, for £190m last year in a dramatic return to the central London market. Its 681 flats will be built over four phases, of which the first will be built by 2020 and supply 151 flats. The scheme could have an end value of £600m and is one of a handful in this area of central London. For Taylor Wimpey, the scale and £1,300 per sq ft pricing justifies the outlay, but they are far from the only developers to take a more sophisticated approach to sales. Market leaders McCormack points to Ballymore’s Embassy Gardens and Canary Wharf Group’s One park Drive as the market leaders. “For Embassy Gardens,” says Hal Currey of London-based practice HAL Architects, which designed the Embassy Garden’s suite, “it was a stake in the ground with a building as precursor to a wider development, setting a benchmark for what was to follow.” [gallery type="slideshow" ids="945205,945206,945207,945208,945209,945210,945211,945212,945213"] Canary Wharf Group’s One Park Drive relies on a more physical sales technique: a full floor in one of the group’s towers was turned into sales suite, with full a mock-up apartment offering panoramic views of the Isle of Dogs and illustrating what future residents can expect. Not all developers have access to a spare floor on a 40- storey tower though, and show flats are not as much a no-brainer as one could expect. Currey says including them is often intensely debated as they will not be an exact replica of the flats and their layout when bought. Thus, they complicate sales. How it was done before “Your classic marketing suite going back a few years was always a complete reflection of the development, but more and more what we have done is to link the narrative of the development, the place and what had gone there before,” he says. This strategy comes to the fore at the sales pavilion for at Ballymore’s Goodluck Hope in Poplar, where palm trees and a garden are included, though no actual apartments. (Apparently, three centuries ago, palm trees were used as navigational aids for ships in the waters around East India Docks.) For Taylor Wimpey at Mount Pleasant, the strategy seems to be paying off. The first day of sales saw 80 people through the door and 15 reservations, despite the Phase 1 scheme not completing until 2020. There was a steady procession of visitors when EG was there. Taylor Wimpey, alongside many other developers, will be hoping that continues. To send feedback, e-mail alex.peace@egi.co.uk or tweet @EGAlexPeace or @estatesgazette