A Research of Strategies of Developing Ecological Residence in China

Abstract Ecological residence is the direction of residence development in 21 century; it is the final choice of people when their living standard becomes high enough. Ecological Residence pursues high harmony and unification among nature, buildings and human, and improves the ecological environment and living quality of human. This article analyzes the problems in developing ecological residence in China, and states the strategies in the aspects of national policy, construction planning and marketing to promote the development of ecological residence in China.


The problems in the development of ecological residence in China
Although ecological residence is becoming more and more popular in China, there are a lot of problems that should be solved in the development of ecological residence.

People are indifferent to ecological residence
Most residents don't know about the concept and connotation of ecological residence.When they are asked about the difference between ecological residence and general residence, most of them think that the one has larger virescence area and nice ambiance is ecological residence.When buying house, most people mainly think about the factors that have close relationship with their own life, but care nothing about the factors that have little relationship with them, such as environment protection, energy saving.It can be seen that most people know little about the content and standard of ecological residence, they don't know the real connotation of ecological residence, but just has a blurry concept that there is larger virescence in ecological residence (Hu, 2005).

The government's supervision on the development of ecological residence is not well carried out
Relating departments of Chinese government has established standard to evaluate ecological residence, and has taken some measures to promote the development of ecological residence, but the system for the design of ecological residence in real estate market is not standardized, the government's supervision is not strengthened, there are some rough-manufactured residences in the ecological residence market, which influence people's cognition about ecological residence.In addition, government has not established supporting policy in the aspect of making a price.Hence, the technology of ecological residence is not perfect, many newly developed ecological residence cost much, and the price is too high.

Support from financial market is weak
Capital and land are two most important factors in the development of real estate.The real estate developers have low proportion of owned capital, so they depend on the capital of financial institution to a great extent.The study on the new material and new energy will not only make the cost become higher, but also bring risks, so financial institute will pay more attention to the risk analysis about the financing of ecological residence developer, and accordingly put forward higher demand on financing to avoid financial risk.Besides, the financing channel is narrow now in China, fund trust for real estate started not long ago, money market should make much more effort in promoting the development of ecological residence.

The developers are eager for quick success and instant benefit
The market of ecological residence is not perfect now, many house buyers know little about ecological residence.Many real estate developers publicize their houses in the name of ecological residence, as a matter of fact, the real estate developers just are interested in the brand of ecological residence, and they pay little attention to the improvement of the performance of residence, such as strengthening the heat preservation, improving the aeration and adopting more efficient energy system.So the development of ecological residence is hampered to a certain extent.

Property management doesn't match the ecological residence
Ecological residence attaches importance to the development and utilization of renewable resources, the recycle of resources, and the utilization of high-tech, green and environment-protecting materials.The present situation makes it difficult to realize the objectives mentioned above, for example, the heat supply manner and the charge standard of Chinese ecological residence didn't change; it is difficult to realize household heat metering, users cannot adjust the amount of heat, temperature of house will be too high because of the high-quality heat preservation material, people have no choice but open the window to lower the temperature, in that way, the cost of residence is not reduced at all.Owing to the poor property management, the high price of ecological residence can not be compensated by lowering the use cost; accordingly the development of ecological residence is restricted.

National policy
The positive guidance of national policy on real estate and the improvement of relating policy and law and regulations will play critical role in the development of ecological residence.In order to realize long-term development of ecological residence, government should establish laws and regulations to control and normalize the development of ecological residence; meanwhile, government should support and regulate ecological residence through macro-policy, give attention to the interests of real estate developers and consumers, so as to directly promote the development of ecological residence.
Firstly, government should publicize the new concept of ecological residence to the consumers; make people realize the importance of protecting the ecological environment, and advocate nature, health and austerity.Technological standards about ecological home community should be established, each item should be measurable, and so it will be easier to be carried out.Secondly, government should strengthen macro-control to regulate the real estate market, establish policy that is propitious to the development of ecological residence, normalize the real estate market, accelerate the diversification of development model of ecological residence, and ensure the normal running of every steps of ecological residence development.Finally, government should strengthen supervision on the administration of law, system and standard, and bring the trade self-discipline thoroughly into play.

Construction planning
Ecological residence adopted large amount of new technology and new material, which will increase the cost of civil engineering works, and make ecological residence become the patent of the rich.Thus, the development of ecological home community is restricted to a great extent.Ecological residence should mainly uses normal technology and material (Miao, 2005), together with the planning, design and construction, controls the cost of ecological residence when designing the engineering, so as to realize the development object of ecological residence.
The construction of ecological residence should adhere to the principle of adjusting measures to local conditions; residence development should have local characteristics, ecological residence of different levels should be constructed in urban and rural areas, ecological residence should be integrated into local resources, the special resource and environment should be used thoroughly.
Firstly, in the urban area, land use planning for construction of urban ecological home community should accord with the demand of urban development, and adhere to the principle of unified planning, rational layout, consideration of local conditions and comprehensive development.The concept of ecological city should be introduced into urban development, the nature, climate and ecological resource condition should be analyzed objectively, the ecological resources, such as vegetation, water area and marsh should be used thoroughly.The region and model of ecological home community should be guided and planned well so as to develop a model of ecological residence that has local natural resource characteristics.Ecological residence pays less attention to the specific form of residence; it can be SOHO, town house, waterscape house or affordable housing.
With the improvement of people's affordability and people's concern about ecological residence, top grade ecological home community will be the development trend of ecological residence development.Urban residents pay more attention to the integration of house and environment, saving of available energy, application of environment protecting material and the comfort of residence.Real estate developer can take advantage of environmental characteristic of city and construct medial and high-rise buildings in the city zone with high residential density, while construct villas that is similar to town house in the suburban area.Ecological residence should be constructed considering local conditions.
Ecological residence has potential in the aspect of affordable housing.Ecological residence will not be successful unless the prevailing people can afford it, to achieve this aim, government should put forward policy to guide the development of ecological residence.When developing ecological residence, real estate developer should pay attention to the long-term benefit of residence, but shouldn't just care about the present benefit.Generally speaking, as long as the investment in ecological aspect doesn't exceed 5% of the total cost of building, the ecological investment will be returned in the future five to ten years.In addition, many ecological objectives don't need extra investment, they can be realized in the design and planning of building.For example, staggered layout of monomer house will improve the aeration of room; less lawn and more arbors will improve ecological effect and reduce maintaining expense; keeping space below the flagstone in sloping housetop will not only bring airflow but also keep cool in summer and save electricity used by air conditioning.The realization of long-term economic benefit, ecological benefit and social benefit is the development trend of economic ecological home community.Government should strengthen supervision in the reform of affordable housing.The residence should be economical and ecological, and this is the real development trend of ecological residence.
Secondly, when constructing ecological residence in the village and small town, the great difference between urban area and suburban area should be considered, the residential density of village and small town is low, available space is large, and the climate is good.So the ecological residence in rural area should depend on the application of normal technology and material to improve the performance of house, such as constructing sloping roof, setting up flat-plat solar collectors, firing air bricks that will keep warm and save energy, using plastic steel window that will reduce heat dissipation.The advantage of rural area is that firedamp can be used, firedamp is a renewable resource that can be used in cooking, generating electricity and natural fertilizer.Much water resource is wasted in rural area; circular water treatment in ecological residence will increase water resource utilization efficiency.The ecological residence that covers relatively small area and saves resources should be popularized in the villages and small towns.

Marketing strategy
When ecological residence is well constructed, it should be sold well in the housing market.So the marketing is one of the most important aspects in the development of ecological residence.
Firstly, green marketing of real estate should be carried out.In the green marketing, real estate enterprise introduces green ecological concept into the business activity in order to realize the coordinated development of real estate and environment (Song and Liang, 2005).Green marketing of real estate includes not only the construction of exterior space (green land, square, woods, road and architecture), but also the construction of interior space (direction, arrangement, aeration, lighting, wet and dry situation).Green marketing will cost much, but it is an effective way to make enterprise succeed in the furious competition.In addition, green marketing will impress the consumers; it will improve the image of enterprise, and will be the invisible fortune for the construction of enterprise's brand.
Secondly, the quality of ecological residence should be ensured.Real estate developer should improve the quality of product and use appropriate green marketing to sell the products, so as to enhance the competitive ability of product.Product is the basis of marketing, real estate developer should firstly improve the quality, service and function of residence, thoroughly improve the quality of product, and then it will build up a nice brand in consumer's mind and establish consumer's brand loyalty, things mentioned above will provide conditions for the development and selling of products.
Thirdly, ecological residence should be priced reasonably.Price is the most sensitive and most important factor in the 4P combination (product, price, promotion and place) of green marketing of real estate enterprise.Price influences the market share and earning ratio of enterprise in ecological residence market, the pricing of ecological residence is the crucial factor to influence the real estate enterprise to get economic benefit and social benefit.The strategies to price the ecological residence are as follows: choose pricing strategy according to the characteristic of ecological residence, choose pricing strategy according to the customer and choose pricing strategy according to buyer's cognition about ecological residence (Liu, 2005).
At present, the ecological residence market is not perfect, real estate developers construct the residence with large amount of high-tech products, so the cost is increased and the selling price of ecological residence is high.In the long run, the price of ecological residence should be priced together by government and real estate developer.Government should strengthen supervision and establish some beneficial measure to make the price of ecological residence be reasonable, in that way, more real estate developers would like to develop ecological residence and get profit from it.
Fourthly, expand the marketing channel of ecological residence.The marketing of ecological residence should not only use the traditional marketing methods, such as direct sale promotion and agency by agreement, but also exploit new marketing channels to increase sales volume.Internet marketing is the product of information age and electronic business affair; it can also be applied in the real estate market.The bidirectional communication through internet will break the regional restriction, large amount of information that covers every aspect will be spread to every corner of the world, the content of marketing will be detailed and lively with both langue and picture, it can display the exterior shape and interior structure of product from every angle, thus it is convenient for buyers to choose the product they like.With the further development of electronic business affair, marketing through internet will be a marketing strategy with large potential and development space in the real estate market.
In addition, consumers should be provided with professional comprehensive evaluation on residential environment and consultation, and be guided to choose health and comfortable ecological residence; scientific research institute and design institute should cooperate with the local government and department that is responsible for the construction, take part in the design and construction of ecological residence and the establishment and implementation of technological standards, all of these will promote the ecological development of Chinese residential industry.