Real Estate Philippines News Blog

Serendra is one of most talked about Philippine Condominium projects nowadays. Its unique inner landscapes give it its edge over other developments. Many people have commented about Serendra, both good and bad. Some have marveled and praised its lush greenery and unique architecture, while some disagree and called Serendra‘s design similar to low-end tenament housing. Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone would dare criticize its beautiful inside gardens as shown below…

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It looks like there’s another “Johnny Come Lately” player in the Real Estate Philippines scenario.

R-II Builders, led by Harbour Centre owners Michael Romero and Reghis Romero, have recently inked a p1-billion joint venture project in Taguig City with Taguig Mayor Freddie Tinga, according to Philippine Inquirer (http://www.inquirer.net/propertyguide/aroundtown/view.php?db=1&article=20090130-186399). It says that they plan to build two chubs, namely an 8.8 hectare mixed use development in Ususan called “Skyline City“, and a section of medium rise residential buidlings targeted toward the Taguig working employees.

Again, this new deal just shows the massive potential of Taguig City as the next force to be reckoned with in the Philippine Property landscape, as I have already mentioned in an earlier blogpost on how Taguig will eventually overtake Makati as the next Financial Capital of the Philippines (http://www.realestatephilippinesblog.com/the-fort-bonifacio-global-city-the-future-financial-capital-of-the-philippines/). Aside from all the major Philippine Property players such as Ayala Land, Greenfield Development, Megaworld, Century Properties, the Rufino Offices and Robinsons Land having projects already in Fort Bonifacio Global City, it seems that new property developers also want to join in the frey of the boom.

However, the REAL question here is will the Romeros develop this land properly? In terms of financial capacity, well we can certainly say that they are capable since they do own Harbour Center and have truckloads of money to invest (some rumors suggest them entering the Philippine Basketball Association very soon). But how about the know-how?

We have seen so many Philippine Real Estate developers fail, go bankrupt, and leave early investors in the dust with lost money in unfinished buildings, especially in the last decade of the Asian Financial Crisis last 1997. We Filipinos should have learned our lesson in choosing the right and dependable developer who will finish their projects on time right? I’m not saying that R-II Builders are bad developers, it’s just that they are unproven yet, and only time will tell if they do prove to be good developers or not. Be wary then! Let’s just hope and pray for the fair citizens of Taguig City that they do indeed turn out to be reliable after all and that the Skyline City proves to be beautiful and very livable…

A Philippine Condotel Investment Marketing Company sees sustained growth during 2009 in the Philippine Real Estate sector despite the Global financial crisis.

This worldwide financial catastrophe has affected the economic growth of emerging economies such as the Philippines, where growth slowed down from an outstanding GDP growth of 7.3 percent in 2007 to a lower than expected expansion within the vicinity of 4.5 percent according to economic experts.

Despite this, experts say it’s time to go to back to the basics for 2009 as the remaining liquid investors flock to traditional investment instruments such as direct investments and ownership of real estate. The way to go is revisiting investment opportunities from bricks and mortar businesses or companies which have a physical presence that offers face-to-face customer experiences, ” says Beth Collingz, overseas marketing director of PLC Global, lead marketing partners for the Lancaster Condotels in the Philippines.

Moreover, highly populated countries like the Philippines which, among other sources rely on export revenue; can fall back on its human resources to survive the global financial crisis. The law of
supply and demand tells us that if the Philippines’ export sector is on the downturn because of the recession in the global export market, it can shift to its huge internal market to compensate a shortfall in exports into manufacturing for domestic consumption.

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In light of the current global economic crisis, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has dedided to cut Philippine interest rates by 50 basis points (or .5 percent) to 5%, which they said was the same level of interest rates during the start of the US meltdown. In fact, they are signaling another .5% cut next month to further encourage consumer spending among Filipinos and keep our Philippine economy afloat amidst all this chaos.

In my previous blog post (see and read http://www.realestatephilippinesblog.com/part-2-of-inquirer-article-on-real-estate-philippines/ ), I mentioned there that our Economy grew more than what our government expected at 4.5% GDP, which is obviously good news since it proves we are resilient to the economic downturn. This current move by the BSP is precautionary because they’re “playing it safe” and making sure that there is still enough money to go around with and keep our country moving forward. Perhaps they were taking notice of the many multinationals here cutting jobs or decreasing working hours for Filipinos, so we definitely would experience a slowdown in growth. Still, HSBC analysts confirm that our monetary reserves remain adequate to keep us going (as also mentioned before in http://www.realestatephilippinesblog.com/hsbc-sees-asia-more-resilient-to-crisis/)

This of course has great implications for Real Estate Philippines investors and buyers. Lower interest rates mean that people will get encouraged to loan more in the bank to buy houses, lots and condominiums. It also implies lesser interest expense in loans for constructing a home or buildings. However, this can also turn out to be a sign that our fall is yet to come since the US had several straight rate cuts in a row, but still their economy fell into recession.

The main difference here is that their exposure to sub-prime mortgages are way too high, and they even had complicated debt instruments which were also exposed to bad debts from American homes which gave them more trouble. Here in the Philippines, such is not the case, because majority of home buyers here are not speculators but mostly end-users who really need a place to stay. As I mentioned before (in blogpost http://www.realestatephilippinesblog.com/philippine-properties-still-good-bargains/ ), population growth is our main demand driver for the Real Estate Philippines sector, so we should remain strong in the times ahead. In fact, Philippine banks here have made it more difficult to loan, since they do not want to emulate the disaster of the US banks, so this should put us in check.

If you ask me, we should definitely consider going to the bank for a housing loan, especially when they cut rates again next month, and maybe even the months after. Provided, of course, that the Philippines indeed proves to be healthy in these hard times.

So… continue to be watchful folks!