Primary Homes vice president for sales and marketing Ramero F. Espina discusses updates of the project. (CDN PHOTO/ CHRISTIAN MANINGO)
Primary Homes Inc. (PHI) has repositioned its project in Argao town as an investment and vacation home.
The developer has also increased its investment in Argao Royal Palms to P500 million from P300 million.
Ramero F. Espina, vice president for sales and marketing, said they saw the potential to offer their property as an investment after they realized that while the south of Cebu has become a very popular tourist destination, there aren’t many accommodation establishments.
“There aren’t many hotels or accommodations in the south where tourists can stay while touring the many destinations in the south. So we thought of tapping that market,” he said.
The Argao Royal Palms is a 2.9-hectare property with 56 villas and 396 condominium units, which investors can buy and use for vacation or rent out to earn income. A unit costs P1.4 million to P14 million.
“It creates a connection to support local tourism and serves as a second-home destination tapping the foreign crowd, city dwellers and local residents,” he said.
Espina said there are three ways to earn from the investment – through rental, vacation day share, or resale of the property after five years.
“For rental on a weekly basis, the rate can be P10,000 per week. At a 50 percent occupancy rate, one can already earn P256,000 a year or P210,000 if you have it rented per month at 70 percent occupancy,” he said.
On a vacation day share option or for those short overnight stays, potential earnings could reach P240,000 a year.
“If you opt to sell after five years, the resale price is at P3 million. That will give you at least P850,000 profit minus the P2 million investment and about P150,000 taxes and other related charges,” he said.
Espina said they are getting a lot of interest from investors already.
“We just completed building of the villas and just started with the condominium. Over 50 percent of the villas are already sold mostly to Filipinos who are based abroad. We are starting to see a lot of interest from foreign buyers for the condominium units,” he said.
Based on figures from the Department of Tourism (DOT), 2.5 million tourists visited Cebu in 2014.
Espina said travel agencies told them that most of their tour groups prefer going to southern destinations like the seven waterfalls and the whaleshark watching in Oslob town.