Developers eyeing countryside areas

CEBU, Philippines — As the real estate sector continues to pull its way up amid the pandemic, properties in the countryside and non-urban areas are now the point of interest among developers.

In a report conducted by Colliers Philippines, it revealed that while Cebu City remains the primary site for new residential projects, interest of developers are now magnified to the outskirts especially after the pandemic.

In the first quarter of 2021, outlying areas accounted for 61 percent of take-up in Cebu’s residential market, namely the cities of Talisay, Lapu-Lapu, and Carcar.

The appetite of the market to acquire house and lot properties especially with the introduction of work-from-home arrangement rises, thus developers are now on their active look-out for countryside properties including seaside parcels of land.

In fact, City of Naga, Balamban and Minglanilla are now considered as playground of developers looking for good deals for property acquisition.

The competitive mortgage rates (7.4 percent as of first quarter of 2021), flexible payment terms offered by residential developers, and sustained OFW remittances of about USD8.5 billion (PHP408 billion) should help drive take-up beyond 2021.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) indicated that 5 percent of deployed OFWs in 2019 came from the Central Visayas region.

Like Metro Manila, Colliers has also projected that remittances from OFWs will continue to bolster demand for affordable to mid-income residential condominium units in Metro Cebu.