Lahore: Bahria Town has consistently performed well on Zameen, the biggest and the most popular property portal of Pakistan, but the last five quarters have especially been eventful for all the stakeholders of Bahria Town and also the project per se.
The Arsalan Iftikhar case may have bruised the performance of Bahria Town on Zameen for a couple of months but its effects are wearing off as Bahria Town Lahore resumes its upward journey on Zameen Search Trends. Zameen.com reveals Bahria Town’s journey over the last five quarters.
For Bahria Town Lahore, buying and renting trends have always painted a favourable picture throughout its history, as the project managed to spark the interest of thousands of users at Zameen.com. A majority of members at Zameen.com show an inclination towards properties listed for projects in Lahore real estate sector and as per the stats of Zameen.com, Bahria Town has undoubtedly been one of the top most searched localities of the city. This report is based on the findings of 2,977,063 searches carried out on Zameen for Lahore properties since June 2011.
In June 2011, almost a year before the controversy surfaced, Bahria Town Lahore claimed 3.50% of the total traffic that looked up properties in Lahore on Zameen. Data reveals that it was the time when the average property price for a 10 marla residential plot for sale in Bahria Town was hovering at Rs 1,628,333 at the rate of Rs 163,820 per marla. Over the course of the next few months, this percentage steadily increased and in August 2011, Bahria Town managed to get 4.27% of Lahore’s total visitors, which was its highest in 2011. Later that year when Zameen experienced a surge in the activity for Lahore properties during the last four months of 2011, Bahria Town again registered a healthy average of 3.6%.
The prices of both homes and plots in Bahria Town have steadily climbed as well. The data suggests that the per marla price of a home in Bahria Town in 2007 was Rs 509,375 and Rs 160,651 per marla for a residential plot. For 10 marla residential plots, 2008 started slowly as Bahria Town recorded an average price of Rs 1,125,000 at the rate of Rs 112,500 per marla in Jan 2008. The average price of the same 10 marla residential plot swelled to Rs 2,150,000 and Rs 244,318 per marla at the end of the same year. The average per marla price for houses, which was Rs 509,375 in 2007, crossed the threshold of Rs 713,691 in 2011.
Earlier in 2012, both Bahria Town and Malik Riaz found themselves amidst a number of controversies, the biggest of which came in June when the Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo motu notice of the ‘news’ that had been flying around regarding his son, Arsalan Iftikhar. As the matters heated up, several of Bahria Town’s other cases, including their new project in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, were sucked into a whirlpool of bad press which bruised the goodwill of Malik Riaz and resultantly gave birth to an uncertainty regarding the future of Bahria Town. This uncertainty was reflected and recorded by Zameen in the form of a sharp decline in the number of people interested in Bahria Town Lahore.
Zameen’s data, which showed a healthy, consistent climb in Bahria Town’s popularity during the first five months of 2012, suddenly showed a steep fall in activity for Bahria Town property. Bahria Town, which had gained two solid points in its monthly visitors’ percentage and recorded 5.48%, its personal best at that time, began its downward journey in July and ended up losing 0.95% of Lahore’s traffic. To lose 1% of the total number of visitors interested in Lahore properties in less than a month is literally huge as this 1% amounts to thousands of members at Zameen. For several other Bahria Town projects, especially Bahria Enclave and Bahria Town Rawalpindi, the controversy proved much worse as their prices plummeted.
Bahria Enclave, which was the worst affectee of all, as it its property prices suffered a blow of 20%, according to Dawn newspaper. For Bahria Town Lahore however, the blow only caused a very minor and almost negligible dent in its prices. For 10 marla and 1 kanal plots in Bahria Town, price fell from Rs 2,657,784 and Rs 5,474,468 in May to Rs 2,613,814 and Rs 5,392,403 in July respectively. Now three months later, Zameen’s data suggests that not only the effect of the controversy is over but the project is also back with a bang. Bahria Town Lahore was a solid project which has been only just minutely affected by the controversy and has thus, very quickly been able to shake off the downward trend almost and is back on the track, by securing a 6.74% of Lahore’s total traffic.
It is an astounding figure which represents that the rise in people’s interest in Bahria Town is almost twice as much as the setback it suffered in July. The same can be said about the increase in its property prices where the average 10 marla plot was going for Rs 2,722,172 in August. This rise in price was sharper for 1 kanal residential plot which recorded an average of Rs 6,055,667 during the same month. Such quick recovery goes to say volumes about Bahria Town’s strength as a truly outclass project which came out of the mammoth controversy literally unscathed.
Shaista Zulfiqar from Zameen.com contributed for this report.
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