Philippine ranking in JLL global index improves to 42nd

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines improved its ranking in Jones Lang Lasalle’s Global Real Estate Transparency Index due to its efforts to include the real estate market in its anti-money laundering efforts.

The country ranked 42nd among 94 countries and 156 city markets included in the study, two spots higher than its 44th rank in 2020.

JLL cited the Philippines’ move to extend the Anti-Money Laundering Act to cover real estate as among the new initiatives in real estate transparency implemented around the world over the last two years.

Based on Republic Act 11521, which strengthens the anti-money laundering law, the country included real estate developers (REDs), real estate brokers (REBs), offshore gaming operators (OGOs), and OGO-service providers (OGO-SPs) as covered persons. The law was enacted in January 2021.

Despite the higher rank, the Philippines registered an overall score of 2.91, the same score it posted in 2020.

The index is based on a scoring of one to five, with one being the most transparent and five being opaque.

The country registered its highest score in the listed vehicles sub-index with a score of 2.24. The sub-index assesses transparency in the financial disclosure and corporate governance requirements of listed real estate vehicles.

This was followed by the transaction processes sub-indice with a score of 2.47. This examines transparency across key elements of the transaction process for sales transactions.

The Philippines registered a score of 2.52 in the market fundamentals sub-indice, which measures the availability, quality and depth of real estate market data across geographies, sectors and types of data.

The country scored its lowest in the investment performance sub-indice with a score of 3.79. This covers four topics particularly, direct property indices, listed real estate securities indices, private real estate fund indices, and valuations.

It also recorded scores of 2.66 and 3.33 in the regulatory and legal sub-indice and sustainability sub-indice, respectively.

Given its overall score, the country was classified under the semi-transparent level which covers those scoring 2.66 to 3.50.

The transparency index classified countries into five tiers namely highly transparent, transparent, semi-transparent, low transparency and opaque.

The United Kingdom ranked first in the global real estate transparency index with an overall score of 1.25.

In contrast, Ethiopia ranked last at 94th with a score of 4.60.

JLL CEO for Capital Markets Richard Bloxam said this year’s survey reveals a widening gap between the most transparent countries and the rest.

“The highly transparent markets are forging ahead on the back of technology adoption, climate action, capital markets diversification and regulatory change.Meanwhile, many other markets are at best treading water, even regressing, or in some cases, regrettably disappearing completely off the radar,”Bloxam said.