2020 year in review

At home, at work, across the country, and throughout the world, 2020 has proven a challenging year for us all. The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked significant changes in our world and has resulted in a rethink of our current way of life.
 
At Sekisui House Australia, we worked to adapt to these challenges, along with the broader property sector, and this resilience has seen us overcome adversity. In fact, we have continued to see strong interest in the homes and communities that we develop.
 
Our focus on creating homes and communities that foster health and wellbeing, provide comfort alongside design excellence, and offer quality that stands the test of time, has underpinned our success in an unprecedented market environment.
 
There have been many new trends emerge this year in the sector, and I wanted to share a few that stand out for me:
 

• Designing for flexibility – Designing flexible and adaptable spaces has been a hallmark of the modern-day workplace in recent years. However, due to COVID, we’ve seen this trend become a focus in our homes and communities.
• As we spent more time at home, the need for more flexible multi-use rooms grew. These spaces can be adapted from a home office to an exercise area, music room, or separate dining area and can be partitioned to minimise noise interruptions.
• Green space and wellbeing - The popularity of public and green spaces have increased dramatically, with people looking for homes close to parklands, walkways, and cycleways. Areas that allow people to live a healthy lifestyle and connect with nature close to their homes and within their local community is now on the checklist for most buyers. 
• Balancing virtual and physical interactions – When the pandemic hit, the customer journey when buying a home was turned on its head.  As display suites closed and face-to-face interactions reduced significantly, our team pivoted quickly by developing stunning virtual tours of our developments and increased our digital presence to ensure our customer engagement remained strong. Moving into 2021, we’ll see a blend of virtual and physical become the new normal. Buyers can now get the full 360 degrees feel for a home before setting foot in the property, ultimately giving them more certainty when they search.

 
Sekisui House has a history of innovating in the face of challenges, which has seen the business prosper since its beginning in 1960 in Japan. This year has provided a whole host of lessons for the property industry and seen us adapt under pressure. The team at Sekisui House Australia will be bringing these new learnings, ideas, approaches, and innovations into to new year for our customers.
 
I hope everyone enjoys a very well-deserved break, and I look forward to connecting with you in 2021.