Despite the growth Egypt's real estate market has seen over the past few years, supply has yet to catch up with demand. New developments and a buzz of construction activities have taken over what were once stretches of desert, as more and more people seek housing outside crowded Cairo. Behind the urban sprawl are innovative real estate firms ready to capitalize on these opportunities — and one of these companies is Better Home. Better Home Group, founded in 1992 initially under the name Better Business, was specialized in the export and import of IT components. In 2003, Better Home Group broadened its business spectrum, foraying into real estate investment and development. The group incorporates three companies: Better Home, Better Office and Better Mall, each developing individual projects. With two residential complexes in Sixth of October City and New Cairo, Highland Park is master-planned to create more blue and green spaces. Built over 4.7 acres in Sixth of October City and 12 acres in New Cairo, only 20 percent of Highland Park is dedicated to residential buildings. In addition to its vast green spaces, one of the compounds encircles a man-made beach. Better Home's Director of Public Relations, Nael Shokry, says underground parking was utilized to ensure ease of access to homes (from underground) and less traffic, without spoiling the scenery. “When coming home from shopping at the supermarket, [residents] can just park their car under the house and use the lift to get their groceries up to their flat. This underground parking concept enables us to dedicate the areas above ground to landscape, parks and the beach, with no cars. So it really is 80 percent landscapes and this is the lifestyle we are selling.” Sherif Adly, CEO of Better Home, said their developments target a specific type of customer. “When we came into the market, nobody was thinking about the upper/upper-middle class guy who can't afford a villa but wants an apartment. An apartment in which he can live his life with the facilities a villa provides, like a swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a gym and a sense of peace and tranquility that comes with green open spaces. This is exactly what we offer.” And this is why the firm chose to build these compounds in Sixth of October City and New Cairo. “Naturally, people go east and west, if they live in Heliopolis or Nasr City, they would look for housing in New Cairo. If they live Downtown or in Mohandiseen, they look in Sixth of October. This is how we target our customers.” Better Home also had its future residents in mind when planning the man-made beach at Highland Park. Adly explained that families usually travel long distances, to Ain Sokhna or the North Coast, to go to the beach. “We thought why not bring the beach to our clients,” he added. Better Office, the third company, develops administrative buildings with premium facilities, and currently has two projects: Cairo Medical Center and Cairo Business Bay. The company was able to use its experience as an IT provider in all its development projects. “We used our IT experience in developing smart homes for our clients. We use things like IR repeaters, which enable you to control you home appliances via remote, and surveillance over IP cameras, which allow you to watch over your house even when you are at work,” said Shoukry. This IT know-how extends to its Cairo Medical Center project. A system insures that patients are informed of their turn either by displaying messages on screens or through speakers using audio- visual monitoring services of queues and patient traffic in public waiting areas. “This allows patients and families to enjoy the food court or kids area instead of just waiting in a room,” Adly added. Even though business is going well, Adly said, the biggest problem facing Better Home and others in the real estate market is the decreasing amount of land being auctioned by the government as well as expensive land prices. “We bought all this land in auctions and the prices are very high costing more than 50 percent of unit prices. We want it to be more like 30-35 percent. The prices will continue to rise though, as the auctions offer less land,” he said. As for the continued shortage of housing supply, Adly says: “If you read any material on housing and development, they say we have around 300,000 marriages a year so we need to provide 300,000 [housing units]. But we are only developing around 60,000 and a large number of them are in the luxury housing class. “The main problem is not in scarcity of building material, like steel or cement, but the scarcity of land for development of new settlements and real estate investments,” Adly concluded.
