Our Customers

We regularly seek feedback from customers and are focused on incorporating their feedback into our product design and service offerings.

We have a diverse range of customers, including commercial tenants, shoppers in our retail centres and purchasers of our residential and retirement properties.

We regularly seek feedback from customers about their priorities through surveys and research, and we are focused on incorporating their feedback into our product design and service offerings.

Housing affordability

A key emerging issue for our residential customers is housing affordability. Across FY08 our typical product attracted a land price of $240,000. Modelling suggested that 78 per cent of the market would face financial difficulty in purchasing this product.

In the past year we identified two areas where we have scope to make improvements to affordability. The first was introducing villa allotments – creating detached lots under 300 square metres. The second was to change the mix of our existing range of product types, placing greater concentration on more affordable land types, essentially those lots under $200,000.

Our ability to understand the impact of reduced housing affordability on housing demand, and to quickly respond with product and operational changes, has strongly contributed to our market performance over the past year.

In FY09 we have increased our market share to nine per cent. In particular, we have extended our reach into the first home buyer market.

Customer satisfaction

Our Residential Communities business conducts a weekly tracking study called Stockland Customer Pulse. Feedback to date has indicated that 96 per cent of our buyers rate the overall sales experience with Stockland as good to excellent. One of the most important aspects we measure is the proportion of lead customers and deposit customers that are first home buyers, second/ subsequent home buyers and investors. This helps the business understand recent trends and helps foresee the likely customer mix six months ahead.

In our retail business customer feedback is sought from a mystery shopper program which rates Stockland centres' quality of customer service, cleanliness of facilities, employee presentation and availability of service professionals. In FY09 there was an eight per cent improvement in scores across these measures. This information is used to improve our services so that Stockland shopping centres meet the needs of the local community.

First home buyers – a new start

Stockland's Freshwater community at Griffin north of Brisbane, is part of a new affordability initiative that offers buyers the option of a two-bedroom home and land package priced around $300,000. The product offering is in response to Stockland research that shows buyers are changing their expectations about the size of their first home to get a start in the property market.

Daniel and Michelle Belanji, pictured, are currently renting but have been saving and are now able to build their first home at Freshwater.

Daniel is looking forward to breaking out of the rental cycle and starting to pay off his first home. "We will be paying about the same amount each month as we are now paying in rent, if not less," he said. "We would have been stuck renting and paying off someone else's house."

Since its launch in October last year, Freshwater has proven incredibly popular with new home buyers who like the community's sense of privacy and security as well as its handy access to both Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

Plans have also been put in place for a village shopping precinct, day care centre and primary school on the community's western border.