Casa Mira brand of residences of Cebu Landmasters Inc. has been one of the strongest performing real estate brands of the developer, which has announced a strong sales performance for their projects this year.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Underserved market, OFWs continue to fuel real estate demand in Cebu
Residential properties in Cebu continue to enjoy a high take up even with concerns on the country’s economy especially with the continued increase in inflation.
Local developers have reported good sales and pre-selling data of their different projects all over the province.
Among those seeing huge growth in their project sales is Cebu Landmasters Inc. (CLI) which reported that from January to September this year, they have registered record reservation sales amounting to P6.17 billion.
The figure represents 88 percent of the company’s goal of P7 billion in 2018. This is also 69 percent higher than their reservation sales for the same period in 2017.
Prices stable
CLI President and Chief Executive Officer Jose Soberano III said that the real estate sector had not suffered from the continued increase in the prices of basic commodities.
“As far as construction materials are concerned, the prices are quite stable and prices of steel products have even dipped down of late,” Soberano told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview.
“This is mainly due to real strong demand for homes coming still from the underserved economic and mid market sectors which will not necessitate developers to raise prices on these real estate products,” he added.
Casa Mira
For CLI, they have attributed their strong performance to the robust sales from its economic housing brand Casa Mira as well as their high-end projects in Cebu.
Soberano said about 2,500 units were taken up by the market at an average of P2.5 million. Casa Mira contributed P1.42 billion from sales of 746 units.
Baseline Center, a high-end mixed-use development in Cebu City chalked in P1.8 billion from sales of 341 units. Meanwhile, MesaVirre Garden Residences, a condominium complex in Bacolod City, sold 427 units to raise P929.93 million.
CLI has a total of 52 developments of different stages in cities like Cebu Mandaue, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Iloilo, and Bohol.
14 projects
According to Soberano, they are looking at 14 projects serving the mid to economic segments in different locations in Visayas and Mindanao like Cebu, Dumaguete, Cagayan de Oro, and Davao to continue to boost their sales.
“We expect to see continued strong sales performance in the coming years as demand for housing from these segments of the market remains firm,” he said.
Other developers are also not feeling the effects of inflation as well as the depreciating peso in the real estate industry.
Grand Land Vice President Khristina Pestaño said that they, too, have been experiencing good take up of sales for their residential units over the year.
“Our read for occupancy units and pre-development sales in Amani Grand Resort Residences in Mactan and Grand Residences in Cebu East and North Towers are very good,” she told CDN.
Based on their latest figures, Grand Land has sold 95 percent of their units for their Amani Grand Residences Building B which is still in the pre-development stage.
On the other hand, for their Grand Residences Tower 3, their units are already 85 percent sold.
Although economists have been frowning upon the continued depreciation of the peso versus the US dollar, developers like Grand Land are seeing opportunities in this.
“Our market focus are the OFWs, who have been contributing to the economy of the Philippines. Last year, they have contributed around $33 billion to the Philippine economy and part of it goes to real estate,” Pestaño said.
A stronger dollar versus the peso is somehow beneficial for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as their remittances have higher value when it reaches the country.
Trend explained
Joey Bondoc, research manager of Colliers International Philippines, said in a phone interview on Friday, that this trend was similar to what we had been seeing in Manila despite the inflation.
“The Central Bank is responding to higher inflation by raising policy rates, but the effect is not immediately felt by the consumers. The 100 to 150 basis points increase is something the market can still absorb,” he said.
Bondoc said that Cebu’s real estate trend with developers experiencing a higher take up on sales was experienced by Manila developers in the first half of the year with 31,000 units taken up in the pre-selling condo market.
He said that this would indicate a robust demand in the real estate market.
“As to peso depreciation, OFWs are in fact taking advantage of a depreciating peso by sending in more money to their families in the Philippines. This fuels the OFW families’ purchasing power and their capacity to buy condominium units,” he said.
He also said that despite Central Bank’s implementation of anti-inflationary measures, banks had remained competitive and so far we had not been seeing a significant spike in mortgage rates.