Property firm to build 500 houses in Cebu

A LOCAL real estate developer is aiming to add at least 500 residential units in Cebu in the next two years as it introduced its third house and lot project in Minglanilla town in southern Cebu.

Arli T. Arenas-Vergara, sales and marketing head of Paramount Property Ventures, said the Minglanilla project called the Vizkaya Zen Residences, would be part of the firm’s expansion plans for Cebu.

Vergara said the firm was very confident of the Cebu market based in its experience with its three past projects – Coral Bay, Fonte di Versailes, and Mazari Cove.

“Our Coral Bay project with 74 units is sold out, Fonte de Versailes has 232 units and about 65 percent of that is sold while our Mazari Cove with 400 units is 80 percent sold out,” she said.

Their new project called Vizkaya Zen Residences will have 121 units located in a 2.2 hectare property in Calajaan, Minglanilla, Cebu.

“All our existing projects are located in Naga and Minglanilla which are south of Cebu because the owners are from Minglanilla and they are also very confident about the prospects of developing projects in the area because of the South Road Property,” she said.

Vizcaya Zen Residences will be the first residential project in Cebu that will feature a Basic Intrusion Alarm System provided by SSMI or Security and Systems Monitoring, Inc.

“With this project we hope to attract the higher middle class market,” she said.

The firm is also targeting expats, foreign nationals and overseas Filipino workers for their three project in Cebu.

Mar Relampagos, a company official, said the Cebu real estate industry was expected to continue growing with more players coming in to introduce their products to the Cebuano market.

“Based on the data from HLURB (Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board) there are about 45 more projects applying for permits here in Cebu, which only shows how confident developers are about the market,” Relampagos said.

He said this was the reason for the expansion of 500 residential units on top of the 1,000 units provided by its three other projects.

Roy Vincent Lumayag, another company official, said they were studying plans to go into the condominium market.

“We are still looking at the plans and negotiating with land owners as of this time but we will definitely go into vertical projects perhaps in 2013,” said Lumayag.

The firm also plans to expand outside Cebu particulary in Bohol and Davao, which have growing real estate markets.

“While Cebu remains an attractive market to tap, we thought that we can also start expanding outside to also offer our products to the huge and still untapped market in these areas,” Lumayag said.

He said the expansions outside Cebu might happen next year./Reporter Aileen Garcia-Yap