palomponhousing

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Skyline, facades mirror changes in taste, means

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

WOOD gave way to steel. One-story buildings soared to become high-rise towers. And plain old architecture is transforming into green architecture.

Changes in building trends have kept pace with the growth of Cebu City’s real estate industry in the past three decades.

Engr. Willy Tiu Go, owner of the WTG Construction and Development Corp., has witnessed the structural changes in the city since 1982.

Go, who started his construction company in that decade, said buildings constructed 30 years ago were mostly single-storey, “straightforward” projects.

“They were very simple. Patag ra. Di pa gyud uso ang medium-rise or high-rise sa una (They were mostly one level; medium-rise or high-rise buildings were not the trend then),” he said.

The use of construction materials has evolved, along with building design.

In the 1980s, complex shapes as well as intricate and detailed carvings—almost Baroque, in some cases—were favored.

Now, however, Go said most of the buildings are high-rise structures over 15 levels high, which have significantly changed the city’s skyline.

Although cement continues to be used, most buildings’ façades are now coated with cladding or sheets for a sharper look, he said.

Because of the effects of climate change, engineering trends now give more emphasis on green infrastructure, which means designing buildings that will adapt to weather changes.

“Solar panels are now being used and buildings are naturally ventilated,” he said.

Similar observations were offered by the City Government’s Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW).

Engr. June Nadine Sison, who heads the DEPW’s construction division, said designs and trends in the construction of buildings in the city have “significantly” changed in the last three decades.

Sison said the present engineering trends have made buildings more attractive and able to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

“Before, we were only contented with a plain cement and paint finish, but now we have different claddings like glass, among others. We have also used pre-fabricated wall systems. Before, we used wood in building but now we don’t to prevent the cutting of trees,” she said.

“People now prefer high-rise buildings” because the cost of land keeps them from acquiring more space, she said.

With the help of technology and better equipment, Sison said the construction of buildings has grown faster.

High-rise buildings take just over a year to build, while in the 1980s it took two to three years to build more modest structures.

Both Go and Sison believe that as technology advances, more systems will be developed in the construction industry to make buildings more innovative and eco-friendly.

When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

Avail of the opportunity to own a condominium unit in Cebu City together with your own parking space at the low amount of only P12,000.00+ and House and Lot @ P 7,306.81/month only. Hurry while supply of units still last. Just call the Tel. Nos. shown herein: (053)555-84-64/09164422611/09173373687.

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When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

http://gregmelep.com/?view=details&catitemid=3

When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

‘Local BPOs helping firms in U.S. Europe survive their crises’

Published on Tuesday, 20 November 2012 21:09

Written by Dennis D. Estopace / Reporter

AMERICANS and Europeans owe us and owe us big, according to C.B. Richard Ellis Philippines Inc. (CBREPI).

Hundreds of Filipino workers burning the midnight oil and their youth, especially in business-process outsourcing (BPO) companies, have propped up business in the United States and European Union, CBREPI said in a statement.

“The Philippines is becoming the lifeboat for many US and European companies that need to outsource in order for their businesses to survive and actually preserve jobs back in the US and Europe,” it added.

The Philippine office of the Los Angeles-based CBRE Group Inc. also said that it sees “a return to and rapid expansion of” US and European multi-national companies (MNCs) in the Philippines, which is fast becoming the “BPO banking hub of Asia.”

CBRE Chairman Rick Santos was quoted in the statement as having said that such is “evident from global banks that are now relocating in the country for back-office support.”

“We are a multinational player without leaving our shores. Manila is now a strategic location for [MNCs and] banks as it supports and runs the world’s businesses out of the Philippines.”

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The company said the BPO sector has created 4.5 million square feet of new office takeup a year.

It also helped that the pace of infrastructure projects continued, with CBRE citing “improved access to the Clark Freeport Zone via the rehabilitated Nlex [Northern Luzon Expressway] and its link to the C-5 road.”

“These resulted in renewed interest to set up business in Clark such as logistics, manufacturing, hotels, housing and condominium as well as built-to-purpose BPO buildings.”

However, while the BPO sector largely spurs increased real demand across all market segments in the residential front, CBRE says “demand for the high-end market will be sustained in 2013.”

“Developers will focus more on mid-income residential market segment within the P45,000 [$1,093.10 at $1=P41.1675] to P80,000 [$1,943.30] square meter range reflecting the demand created from the growing population of families and young professionals and supported by the record-low interest rates.”

Santos said that low interest rates, ranging from 5 percent to 11 percent for short- or long-term payment schemes, “has opened the opportunity for more Filipinos to become owners rather than renters.”

Aside from BPOs, CBRE also noted that other economic growth drivers remain: dollar remittances from overseas Filipino workers and the tourism industry.

Santos also said it also helped that “US-Philippines relations [are] back on track.”

When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

Prohomes affiliates with Johndorf

Monday, November 19, 2012

ESTABLISHED in 2004, Prohomes Development, Inc. has grown to become one of the leading affordable housing developers in Cebu. The company now has eight projects: Genesis Homes, St. Bernadette Homes, Corinthian’s Subdivision, St. Dominic’s Place, Earnestine Homes, St. Anne’s Lane, Fleur de Ville Subdivision and Hanniyah Homes.

Prohomes is now affiliated with Johndorf Ventures Corp. with the acquisition by the Lim family of all the stocks of Prohomes’ minority stockholders. Taking full control of the company is its newly-elected president and CEO Richard Lim and a strong core management team.

“Johndorf and Prohomes will together evolve and become a strong driving force in the industry,” the company said in a press statement.

Johndrof Venture’s more than 20 years of experience in providing a multiple portfolio of developments-condominiums, townhouses, houses and lots-will provide the company heritage and credibility, the statement said.

“Johndorf will help steer the vision of Prohomes to grow in the affordable housing segment as it will continue to focus on the house and lot category by ensuring high quality products through strict standards of workmanship and customer satisfaction through enhanced customer service,” the company said.

Its latest project, Hanniyah Homes, will make available 2,000 townhouse units to the market. (PR)

When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

Batting for urban renewal

Published on Tuesday, 20 November 2012 18:58

Written by Lito U. Gagni / Market Files

‘I AM Cynthia Villar, and I say no to reclamation,” she thundered before a “People’s Summit on the Impacts of Reclamation” at the University of the Philippines last month and there is no denying this is the advocacy that will reverberate all over the archipelago in the coming months.

Villar is serving notice that urban renewal should be the new mantra—not the reclamation that threatens the flooding of thousands of homes. And here, she walks the talk. For on October 12 she took the witness stand before the courts as she tried to marshal the argument that reclamation should not be allowed in a stretch of Manila Bay as the cost and benefit do not tally. She has already won a writ of kalikasan against the project and now wants a temporary environmental protection order (Tepo) that would stop it completely.

Standing tall on her conviction that a planned 635-hectare reclamation project on Manila Bay could economically affect residents of Las Piñas, Parañaque and parts of Cavite, Villar spewed out the cold logic of the numbers. The reclamation would “flood” the economic well-being of the residents of these three cities, as the project would “impede the natural river flow in Las Piñas.”

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She said Las Piñas, which has 4,000 hectares, or 40 million square meters, would not benefit from the planned reclamation that could add another 500 hectares, or 5 million square meters. The additional hectarage does not at all result in increased economic benefits and would even worsen the economic picture for the residents. The damage to flooding “massively outweighs any benefits from the additional land,” said Villar.

Doing the math, Villar said that assuming the cost of the land in Las Piñas is P5,000 per square meter, and the flooding caused by the reclamation would decrease property values by 10 percent, the P200-billion value of the land would go down by P20 billion, which far outweighs the P14 billion worth of reclaimed land. That is how skewed the cost-benefit ratio is, much like the fact that the reclamation proponent, All Tech Contractors Inc., is doing the huge project on a P50-million capital.

And what about the recurring damage? Villar vows: “We will stand firm in our stance against this reclamation, since the Constitution itself guarantees our right to a healthy environment.” What she proposes instead is urban renewal, where old buildings are rebuilt, whole blocks redesigned without any disruption to the ecological balance.

The Las Piñas-Parañaque-Cavite ecosystem is threatened by the reclamation project, as it would not only affect the flow of the Las Piñas River but even destroy the remaining 175-hectare mangrove forest and habitat that is home to bird species unique to the country. Citing an independent hydrologist, Tricore Solutions Inc., Villar is pushing for the Tepo since an “Ondoy”-like flooding would sink villages in the three affected areas by 0.15 meters and as much as 5.12 meters, equivalent to a two-story building.

Aside from this, a livelihood project that Villar conceptualized and which now employs thousands of poor folk along the banks of the Las Piñas River would be affected. What the residents do is collect the waste and water hyacinths along the river system and turn them into works of art that the Villar Foundation then markets and distributes.

Villar’s project, that of educating the Las Piñas residents to weave bags and their dreams to make their lives better, has actually caught fire in a nook along the river system in Pateros, the only remaining municipality in Metro Manila. In this town known for balut and alpombra sandals, a resident on M.R. Flores Street in Santo Rosario Kanluran wants to transplant the Villar livelihood advocacy.

This advocacy for ecological balance and aligned with it, that of providing livelihood opportunities, proves that Mrs. Villar is her own man, so to speak; in walking her talk, she is also doing an extraordinary task of weaving a new paradigm in urban renewal while providing a better future for less-fortunate folk not only in her native Las Piñas but also in 102 government reclamation projects being planned.

That is what makes this former Las Piñas congresswoman a different breed of leader.

When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Is There Really a REAL ESTATE BUBBLE?

Posted on October 31, 2012

Is there a really a real estate bubble developing in the country? Real estate professionals are worried about the bubble, especially now that the country is experiencing real estate boom.
During the “Is a Bubble in the Philippine Real Estate Sector Developing?” seminar last October 23, Mr. David Leechiu and Dr. Winston Padojinog discussed the bubble issue directly.
The data presented by Dr. Padojinog, which included excess liquidity, the presence of price premiums, and excess supply suggests that a bubble is indeed forming in the higher-end residential market segment. Meanwhile Mr. Leechiu’s discussion of the office market appears to support a stable view of that segment.
And while no evidence was presented during the seminar, there was consensus among the speakers that the retail sector was likewise stable, given a preponderance of anecdotal evidence.
The speakers emphasized that their projections are based on what multilateral agencies are expecting, which factors in a weak US recovery, a European fiscal crisis, a volatile Middle East and a China losing steam. Unforeseen events can easily accelerate the local real estate bubble’s expansion and cause it to burst causing debilitating economic damage.
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Steps must be taken to mitigate such an event. Dr. Padojinog states that the “key is to release the pressure and deflate the bubble” and that this should involve “diversifying the lending portfolio of banks by improving the investment prospects of other sectors.” He also recommended repositioning residential projects to cater to underserved segments as well as monitor “shadow banking,” which are informal financing activities in the real estate sector.
According to Dr. Padojinog, who already declared many times that there is really a real estate bubble in theupper and middle income housing markets, the four factors to determine the presence of real estate bubbles are highly liquid financial system, loosening of banks’ lending standards, prevailing market value not supportive of fundamental value of asset, and supply exceeds housing demand.

Are the high end projects the source of developing real estate bubble? (Photo source: www.bestblogmanila.com)

Using the data from Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas, it showed substantial excess savings over investments. This translates to a lot of money held by households and enterprises floating around and not being invested. This excess liquidity needs an outlet and the expected vehicles are the equity market and real estate. Then this excess liquidity is going to real estate because real estate seems to be appreciating and is less volatile as a store of value.
This excess liquidity is going to the high end residential projects because most owners of excess liquidity are top income groups. This is not good since buyers are not end users but investor/speculators and too much supply of leasable space will put a downward pressure on lease income and therefore income values (ultimately market value).
Dr. Padojinog discussed the loosening of Banking Standards and supply exceeding market demand.
He doesn’t see any loosening of bank lending standards and on the market demand, there is a 3 million unit housing backlog for low cost, economic and socialized housing while on the middle cost and high end housing market, there is a surplus of 475,000 units.
Because of this, the main danger now for real estate bubble bursting comes from the middle and higher end housing market segments.
Dr. Padojinog advises developers to give priority the underserved markets such as low cost housing.
Unspoken was the issue that lower end housing projects generate lower yields and that developers always believe their higher end projects will be/are different from others’ projects and therefore will not suffer low take-up rates.
At some point the banks must step in and limit lending to higher end real estate projects or at least increase the lending rates for such. The BSP, on the other hand, cannot increase interest rates to discourage real estate investments because other industries will be affected negatively.

Mr. David Leechiu (Photo source: www.asia-ceo.org)

Mr. Leechiu of Jones Lang La Salle, on the other hand, discussed the demand for office buildings in the Philippines. According to him, the growth of Business Process Outsourcing industry will continue to grow until 2015.
At present, the country’s local office market is one of the largest in Asia, accounting to a total of 7.9 million square meters of effective demand. But, it is the 2^nd or 3^rd cheapest with P1,000 per square meter rental.
Assuming 2011 conditions, almost all new demand is generated by BPOs. Based on 2011 data, the demand for office spaces is approximately 360,000 square meters per annum. This is easily met and surpassed by incoming demand, which is expected to exceed the running average until 2015. Pipeline supply can meet this demand.
If the economy takes off due to sound macroeconomic fundamentals, the running average for annual demand will be about 400,000 square meters. This will just about balance pipeline supply and expected demand surpluses.
What drives JLLS confidence is the amount of pre-building commitments that continue to be place by its clients. The BPO sector will definitely continue to grow until 2015.
Growth will be coming from demand for Bonifacio Global City, GBC, office space because more firms are relocating to Bonifacio Global City, GBC, with many of them want new space or upgrade from Makati. What makes GBC superior to Makati CBD because of infrastructure and planning. Currently, GBC capital values are about 30% higher than in Makati. Most JLLS transactions in GBC range from PhP500 million to PhP2 billion while the few in Makati in 2011 fetched less than PhP500 million. JLLS itself transacts an average of PhP1 billion per year in GBC.

Data showing the chart of office space rate. (Data from Mr. Victor Asuncion)

Quezon City, the country’s largest city, is the next big thing. It has a lot of space and has easy access to the workforce. The infrastructure is also sufficient and can be easily improved.
The next big market in the medium term is Quezon City, or QC. QC has a lot of space and has easy access to skilled labor.
FTI, in which the Ayala Corporation won the bidding from the government, will also be an attractive proposition because of location.
In the case of a new round of financial crisis triggered by problems in the Eurozone, Middle East, or Asia, there will be a 12-month to 18-month lag in demand deflation in office space. That means that the earliest negative repercussions can be felt in 2014 if a crisis develops right now.
In the case of the economy lifting off due to government fiscal and political reforms, brick and mortar business demand will start picking up in 2013. Many multinational companies are already scouting the Philippines for likely offices and plant locations. Speculative demand will translate to effective demand when reforms continue and no new major external or internal crises develop.
The Philippines has been growing at least by 4% on average despite major internal and external crises for the past three decades. JLLS believes that most political and economic risks have already been factored out by investors.
JLLS expects a credit upgrade soon and this will be accompanied by a surge in traditional brick and mortar business investments by foreigners and locals. The JLLS projection of 400,000 square meters per annum as expected demand might be too conservative in such a case.
Moving forward, labor is a major bottleneck. Scalable skilled labor can only be found in Metro Manila and Cebu. Other Philippine cities will be hard-pressed to grow office space, even Davao and Baguio will be difficult to grow because of the education quotient.
The Cebu market is about 10% of the NCR market. Investors are required a physical (disaster) back-up site where they allocate 10% to 20% of their capacity and they choose Cebu because of the scalable labor pool and infrastructure. To underscore Cebu’s secondary quality, JLLS offers Cebu office space at PhP150 to PhP250 per square meter and as yet there are no takers.
Baguio is no longer an option due to lack of reliable airport facility while Davao has been discounted due to lack of scalable labor.
To summarize, JLLS believes office space demand is stable and there is no threat of it collapsing under a bubble scenario.
With these developments, is there really a real estate bubble developing in the country?

When in Cebu City, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.

With sources from: MR. ROQUE SORIOSO, JR. & http://cuervopropertyadvisory.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/is-there-really-a-real-estate-bubble/

palomponhousing

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Skyline, facades mirror changes in taste, means

SEA RESIDENCES - Diokno Blvd., Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City, Manila

http://gregmelep.com/?view=details&catitemid=3

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

‘Local BPOs helping firms in U.S. Europe survive their crises’

Prohomes affiliates with Johndorf

Batting for urban renewal

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Is There Really a REAL ESTATE BUBBLE?

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