Philippines 2015 Real Estate Market Research
What is the future for real estate in the Philippines? This week we launched our second annual real estate market analysis – the ultimate guide to the country’s property sector, offering insights into current trends and predictions for what’s in store for Philippine real estate in 2016.
The property research is based on detailed analysis of Lamudi data, surveys of both house-hunters and industry professionals, and a series of interviews with the country’s leading real estate experts.
The full report is now available to read online at: lamudi.com.ph/journal/real-estate-report-whitepaper-2015/
Below, we share some of the top five findings from our property market analysis for 2015.
1. The preferred location among house-hunters? Metro Manila.
In a customer survey conducted by Lamudi in 2015, more than half (55.05 percent) of the respondents cited Metro Manila as their preferred area to buy a home, with Quezon City being the most preferred city (19.47 percent), followed by Makati (8.65 percent), and Manila (8.41 percent).
Cebu Province—specifically Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu, and Mandaue—is the preferred area of those looking for a property in the Visayas region (6.97 percent), followed by Cavite Province (6.73 percent).
2. Filipinos in general are optimistic about home-owning
The survey also found that 79.6 percent of respondents were looking to move house in the future. An overwhelming majority—94.86 percent—is searching for houses, while 2.42 percent are looking for a condo, and 1.21% are looking for a townhouse.
What’re more, 79.57 percent of survey respondents cited the Internet as their starting point when searching for a property. Real estate websites, search engines, and social media websites are the most common starting points for Filipinos looking for a new home.
3. Top reasons for moving house
The survey also asked the respondents reasons why they are looking to move house. The most commonly cited reasons were: planning to purchase their own property (79.57 percent), area preference (either looking for a better area, planning to move to another city, or planning to live close to relatives) as the primary reason for their impending move (14.66 percent), proximity to schools (1.44 percent), and work-related relocation (2.4 percent).
4. More real estate professionals are switching online
As part of the real estate study, Lamudi also conducted a survey of real estate brokers and industry professionals. In total, 59 percent of the surveyed professionals cited online listings platform as their most widely used online channel to advertise their property listings. In addition, only a handful of the surveyed professionals use offline channels to advertise their listings: such as traditional media (12 percent) and their organization’s MLS (10 percent), or referrals from fellow agents (one percent).
5. Ten cities now have average home price of over Php10 million
According to Investopedia, a prospective homeowner can afford to mortgage a home that costs approximately 2.5 times his gross annual income. If a person makes Php50,000 per month (Php600,000 per year), he can afford a property that costs Php1.5 million.
Using Paranaque as an example, a homebuyer who plans to buy a house in this city needs to make Php4.8 million per year (using the above 2.5 rule) in order to afford the city’s average home price.