This photo taken on January 29, 2019 shows a general view of the skyline of Manila. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)
CEBU CITY — Industry players are optimistic of a positive growth in the real estate business in the Philippines in the next six to 12 months.
The real estate industry, they said, will easily recover because it has never really dipped that much in the past two years since the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the triggers of the real estate growth in the next few months will be the purchase of houses and real property investments by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are starting to be redeployed to other countries.
The Accredited Real Estate Salespersons (ACRES) held its first national convention in Cebu City on Thursday, August 25, to prepare their group for these forecasted growth in the industry.
“Personally, I would like to say that we are up for better times ahead because we are seeing a recovery already. The recovery has already started sometime in 2021 and I am very, very happy to say that despite what has happened from 2020, the growth of the real estate did not really get into the dumps, we did not have any nose dive or anything,” said Chris Malazarte, president of ACRES Cebu South.
Some 700 members of ACRES and other real estate industry stakeholders gathered in Cebu City for their first national convention which was aimed at professionalizing real estate salespeople and combating scams and fraudulent sellers.
Malazarte said a huge chunk of those who are interested in the real estate industry are OFWs.
“These OFWs that we are talking about are always in the look, not only for residential housing, but also as well for investments,” said Malazarte. “We would like to take advantage of the market sentiment which is very positive. Our outlook for the next two to three years is going to be very rosy.”
For Alejandro Mañalac, chairman and co-founder of Havitas Development Corporation based in Manila, the real estate industry has been resilient during the past two years and is now poised to grow as the economy reopens.
Mañalac was optimistic of the growth in the real estate industry and the interest given by OFWs to invest.
He said that some 75 percent of OFW deployment dropped in 2020 but in December that year, the remittances only dropped by 0.8 percent. In 2021, OFW remittances increased by 5.9 percent.
Mañalac said there will be a huge market of OFWs in the real estate industry since they are now changing priorities and putting their money in long term investments such as that of real properties.
At least 75 percent of the OFWs are starting to go back to other countries for work as the world reopens.
“A lot of (OFW) money was poured into real estate. There was a realization that priorities should be buying a home. During the pandemic everybody was reminded to stay home, how can you stay home if you do not have a home,” Mañalac explained.
“Shift has also moved to land-based projects, so if you are able to shift with the market, you will just have to follow the money.. Each crisis (in the past) presented opportunities and it depends on what we are focusing on. If you are focusing on the negative then you will wait for the time it will bounce back.”
Anthony Gerard Leuterio, president of A Better Real Estate Philippines, also saw a positive outlook in the real estate business in the country, considering a backlog of 6.5 million homes in the Philippines.
“The bounce back is coming in the next six months to one year. That is where ACRES will come in and really create more opportunities for people to become sales people,” Leuterio said.
He too believed that the big chunk of real estate investments would come from the OFWs who bring in at least $32 billion every year.
“In my study, there is a big chunk there for real estate opportunities. They want to buy and invest. We don’t want that money to be wasted,” Leuterio said.