focus on real estate

THIS ISSUE: 8 PAGESVOL. 4 NO. 41aDecember 12-18, 2011

www.edgedavao.net

T h e B u s i n e s s P A P E R

www.edgedavao.net

T h e B u s i n e s s P A P E R

e-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]

Focus on Real Estate

EDGEDAVAOTHE BUSINESS PAPER

2 december 12-18, 2011VOL. 4 NO. 41

REAL estate invest-ments in Davao City posted an av-

erage of P4.53 billion per year, according to data obtained from the Busi-ness Bureau.

From P4.516 billion in 2008, the capitaliza-tion slightly dropped to P4.515 billion in 2009 and surged again to P4.57 billion in 2010.

Of the P13.604 billion total investments in three years, 97.7 percent were made in the poblacion

On the cover

Real estate investmentsat P4.53 billion per year

By Greg G. Deligero

area, 2 percent in Talomo, while the remaining less than 1 percent are found in Agdao and Buhangin districts. Most of the prop-erty projects involved the construction of vertical and horizontal structures.

In terms of value of con-struction, the performance dramatically dropped from P10.84 billion in 2006 to P3.52 billion in 2007. Since then, the figures gradually improved to P5.8 billion in 2008 and P7.00 billion in 2009. In 2010, the value of construction reached P7.04 billion.

Interestingly, the num-ber of building permits secured from the City En-gineer’s Office showed a consistent increase except in 2010. Date obtained by Edge Davao showed that from 5,127 permits record-ed in 2006, the number increased to 5,308 in 2007 and 5,694 in 2008. In 2009, the figures also surged to 7,778 but dropped to 5,092 in 2010, the lowest in five year’s time.

Vacation destina-tion

Meanwhile, realtors ask government to sell the country as an ideal vaca-tion destination.

The Philippine Al-lied Chamber of Real Es-tate Brokers and Licensed Salesmen (PhilAcre) is asking the government to come up with an effective promotional program to help sell the Philippines as a vacation destination in the world as global prop-erty buyers are slowly shift-ing their interest to Asia.

PhilAcre president An-thony Leuterio, in a state-ment, said tourism and real estate go together.

“There should be a good promotional program for these sectors. A joint collaboration should be started. There are a lot of interested buyers of con-dominiums from the inter-national market. The Phil-ippines is one of their top picks,” Leuterio said.

Leuterio, who attended

the International Realtors Convention in California last month, said Filipino property sellers went on their own to participate in the event to promote tour-ism and real estate in the Philippines to over 20,000 property sellers nation-wide.

Leuterio said interna-tional investors now, large-ly Americans and Europe-ans, are turning their atten-tion to properties in Asia.

Condo bulk buyingBulk buying of condo-

minium units is becoming a trend for global investors, he said.

Leuterio said investors’ interest may be snatched by other Asian countries, which are actively promot-ing property investments.

He said the Philippines has to compete with other countries, in terms of pro-viding infrastructure facili-ties, to support the bid of becoming an international vacation destination, or even a retirement haven.

He said it has to put up more amusement parks and a good transportation system, among others.

Leuterio said tourists coming to the Philippines should also be introduced to different investment op-portunities here, and con-dominiums are generating the most interest among international property buy-ers.

‘Live Your Dream’ program

Some years ago, the country, through the De-partment of Tourism (DOT), launched the pro-gram called “Live Your Dream,” an investment-tourism strategy meant to lure foreigners, such as active retirees, to invest on vacation homes in the Philippines, which is con-sidered the Hawaii of Asia.

Leuterio hopes this par-ticular program will be re-vived as this will accelerate the growth of both tour-ism and real estate sectors. [WITH PNA]

2010

EDGEDAVAO THE BUSINESS PAPER

3december 12-18, 2011 VOL. 4 NO. 41

YOuNg urban dwell-ers as well as start-up families now tend

to look more at the option of living in middle income vertical communities (such as condominiums) in Met-ro Manila that are in close proximity to the business districts.

Property analysts be-lieve condos will take over the metropolitan areas, while subdivisions will stake their claim in the provinces.

Colliers International claims it has been observ-ing this trend for some time now.

Paul Vincent Chua, as-sociate director for valua-tion and advisory for servic-es and head of consultancy and research of Colliers International, a leading global real estate services company, says his team had noticed since 2009 the abundance of affordable, smaller condominium units with stretched payment terms; their growth fueled primarily by the BPO indus-try, which has spurred the demand for condominium housing in Metro Manila.

“However, the tradi-tional house and lot re-mains to be preferred, as expected, in provincial cities. Only in key cities are condominiums being

preferred over house and lot developments. There are, mainly, Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao. We also saw a decline in HLuRB (Housing and Land use Regulatory Board) licenses to sell for horizontal de-velopments, and a huge increase for vertical de-velopments. It won’t take long until we see former bedroom communities ac-cept condo-living as a sub-stitute,” Chua says.

Enrique Soriano, pro-fessor at the Ateneo gradu-ate School of Business and Senior adviser at Wong + Bernstein Business Advi-sory, says this particular asset class will likely be sustained in 2012. Just last week, Soriano called the condominium take over in the metropolis a “construc-tion frenzy” of mid-income condominium develop-ments.

This trend (vertical de-velopments in key cities), he added, would also be likely seen in Iloilo, Ba-colod and Cagayan de Oro as well as leisure destina-tions like Boracay and Ba-guio City.

Alejandro S. Mañalac, National Real Estate Asso-ciation Chair, says subdi-visions and housing, espe-cially those targeting first home buyers, will always

Vertical communities on the rise

enjoy high demand as long as friendly financing con-tinues to be available.

“In fact, that is where the real shortage is. Af-fordable, family oriented condominiums will also be very popular next year. You will be seeing a lot of these types of developments in Quezon City and in the fringes of CBDs next year. The good thing about this is that buyers of these types of projects are real end-us-ers,” Mañalac explains.



4 december 12-18, 2011VOL. 4 NO. 41

We can solve all your water problems and needs from

leaking faucets to distribution

systems



5december 12-18, 2011 VOL. 4 NO. 41

TO usher in the Christmas sea-son, Camella

Davao simultaneously lit up three of its land-mark developments in the city last December 8 at 7 in the evening.

“We had a grand simultaneous lighting ceremony in our ma-jor projects, Camella Northpoint in JP Lau-rel, Camella Cerritos in Mintal, and Camella Tagum,” said Marlon B. Escalicas, Camella Davao gM.

Adding a festive flair to the ceremonial lighting was a buyers night where homebuy-ers enjoyed big outright discounts, lower down payment with extended terms, and freebies.

“In the spirit of Christmas, we are also giving our homebuyers the chance to win big in the “Home for the Holidays” raffle, where they can win a house and lot, Asian cruise, a brand new car and cash prizes,” said Escalicas.

To find out how to join the ”Home for the Holidays” raffle, Es-calicas urges homebuy-ers to call the Camella offices at 222-0963, 222-5221, 222-5223 (telefax) and 0917-8576572, or visit them

at 2/F Delgar Building, JP Laurel Ave., Bajada, Davao City.

Camella has spent almost a million pesos to deck the well-kept surroundings of its proj-ect sites with colorful Christmas decors and sparkling lights, and the overall look will be even grander than last year. These will illuminate

the three sites that can be seen and enjoyed by the general public as the developments are lo-cated right along major highways.

All Davaoeños and visitors are welcome to enter our developments if they want to take pic-tures or to simply ad-mire our decors, added Escalicas, adding that

they hope that by light-ing up their communi-ties they are sharing the season’s spirit to every-one.

To give their home-buyers and guests a complete feel of the yuletide spirit, a choir group shall be serenad-ing them with Christ-mas carols during the affair.

Camella lights up projects in Davao, Tagum



6 december 12-18, 2011VOL. 4 NO. 41

A lawmaker said last Wednesday said that the government,

through the Department of Science and Technol-ogy and the country’s top state universities, should intensify its research and development (R&D) pro-gram on the creation of new technologies on re-newable energy, carbon emission reduction system and other scientific stud-ies that would expedite the country’s full shift towards green technology.

Iloilo Rep. Jerry Tre-nas made this recommen-dation when he lauded the move of President Be-nigno Aquino to adopt the National Climate Change Action Plan in compliance with the country’s inter-national commitments, especially to the united Nations Framework for Cli-mate Change Convention. But apart from the NCCAP, Trenas said the Philippines should not simply look at its climate change mitiga-tion policy as a mere is-sue on protecting mother Earth because it is a huge investment in improv-ing the economy as well. “green tech is the wave of the future. That’s where everyone’s going and the opportunities for this

field is vast and limit-less. We’ve got to step up in our effort to discover new horizons in green technology,” Trenas said.

Trenas added that a special fund should be set aside by the government for research projects that promote the use of locally available and renewable re-sources that can be tapped to address the growing con-cern over climate change. Such fund can be sourced from R&D funds and from moneys raised from carbon trading, with the specific objective of developing a clean, renewable and in-finite source of energy; alternative materials for building and infrastruc-ture thereby reducing the country’s dependence on raw materials sourced from mine extractions. “Since environment protec-tion is the main objective of green science, our goal in our R&D program is to sup-plement existing renewable energy sources to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel and at the same time devel-op materials and even addi-tives that can to reduce our dependence on logging and mine extraction,” Trenas said noted as he noted that there are existing research-es on the development of

composite materials that would soon replace tradi-tional building materials. Trenas said the utiliza-tion of new technologies to maximize the use of al-ternative energy and the development of new ma-terials and techniques that make exclusive use of re-cyclables and biological scraps would greatly help not only in protecting the environment but also in greatly improving the peo-ple’s way of life.

He cited as an ex-ample the possible devel-opment of pre-fabricated structural foundations that utilize agricultural waste products such as corn cobs and husks, and even pos-sibly water lilies, and the possible development of the Pasig River system as a hydro-power facility. “Apart from energy, the key areas in green technol-ogy would involve buildings, waste and water manage-ment and transportation. We have to develop our own green technology in these areas using resources that are renewable and in-finitely available to us here in the Philippines,” he said. Trenas also lauded Presi-dent Aquino’s initiative to increase the country’s involvement in the glob-

al fight against Climate Change with the adoption of the NCCAP which would become the basis of any assistance that will come from industrialized coun-tries in Europe and the uS, which are largely being blamed for global warming because of massive use of fossil fuels in their industries. The national action plan will be presented to the climate change conference to be held in Durban, South Africa, and it will be the basis of com-pensatory measures that rich

countries have committed to pay. Included in the national plan are the guidelines and framework on how the coun-try can use the assistance once it is approved in Durban. Trenas also cited the Aquino government’s groundbreak-ing partnership with the Al-bay provincial government headed by gov. Joey Salceda for the creation of a Climate Change Academy in Albay to elicit a higher level of climate change consciousness among media practitioners and eventually the general public.

Trenas said that with the en-tire world embracing green technology, in the next 10 years and beyond, it will be the single biggest sector in terms of employment gen-eration and would likely take over much of the manufac-turing and industrial sector. “green technology is here and it is our future. If we want to save the planet and ensure a brighter tomorrow for our children and their chil-dren after them, we should start investing on green technology,” Trenas said.

Support for green technology pushed Focus on Real Estate


7december 12-18, 2011 VOL. 4 NO. 41



8 december 12-18, 2011VOL. 4 NO. 41


Real estate is “Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along

with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; im-movable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; (also) an item of real property; (more generally) buildings or housing in general. Also: the business of real estate; the profession of buying, selling, or renting land, buildings, or housing.”

A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing renure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate (usually of an apartment house) is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights associated with the individual

ownership and controlled by the association of owners that jointly represent ownership of the whole piece. Colloquially, the term is often used to refer to the unit itself in place of the word “apartment”. A condominium may be simply defined as an “apartment” that the resident “owns” as opposed to rents.

Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Although

REAL ESTATE 101

new technologies are constantly being developed to complement current practices in creating greener structures, the common objective is that green buildings

are designed to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the natural environment. [Source: Wikipedia]

NORTHPOINT of the Camel-la Communities is not just a condominium project. It

will likewise feature a commercial complex.

Marlon Nino B. Escalicas, general manager of Camella Davao, bared that the company will soon develop the 2.8-hectare property into a lifestyle commercial center.

This developed as the group of Antonio R. Floirendo Jr. of the Anflo Investment and Management Corp. is sprucing up the old mansion, the so-called “iconic white house,” within the property to turn it into a Japanese themed fine-dining restaurant.

The mansion was owned by

a Scottish who died without heirs.The company is set to open

the restaurant sometime during the Christmas season.

However, officials of Floirendo said the company is still finalizing the specifics of the restaurant as they are also renovating the restaurant in its Pearl Farm marine which will be a Spanish-themed one.

The condominium project will also have coffee shops, other restaurants, a spa and another building for condotel.

Escalicas said the company has also started its second building as those who have bought units in the f irst bui ldings have already relocated.

Commercial complex at Northpoint to rise

CONCERNED about the alarming effects of climate change, Camarines Sur

Rep. Diosdado Macapagal Arroyo is proposing the institutionaliza-tion of cutting-edge advanced en-ergy and green building technolo-gies in the country.

“The country should prepare the next wave of design and construction professionals to improve the energy efficiency and productivity of our nation’s buildings,” stressed Arroyo, author of HB 5220, now pending in the committee on Higher and Technical Education chaired by Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara.

HB5220 is entitled an “Act Authorizing Higher Education Curriculum Development and Graduate Training in Advanced Energy and Green Building Technologies.”

Arroyo recalled that during the latest Annual General Membership Meeting of the Philippine Green Building Council (PhilGBC) held in Makati City, British experts from building and design companies shared their latest and most innovative environmental technologies with local counterparts.

“Part of its global commitment to address alarming trends of climate change, the United Kingdom was reportedly seeking to bring to countries like the Philippines cutting-edge environmental technologies particularly in building designs,” Arroyo said.

Dato, together with Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is proposing that such initiative be worked out by mandating the Department of energy (DOE) to partner with the Commission on Higher Education in awarding grants to university programs related to design and construction of high performance buildings.

High-Performance Building means a building that integrates and optimizes all major high-performance building attributes, including energy efficiency, durability, life-cycle performance, and occupant productivity.

Arroyo cited John Chick, director of UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), as saying that technology sharing is timely since the PhilGBC is currently working on a set of standards for the Philippines called Building Ecologically Responsive Design for Excellence (BERDE).

Arroyo’s HB 5220 specifically states that in awarding grants, the DOE should give priority to university programs in design, architecture, landscape architecture, and city, regional, or urban planning.

“This would improve the ability of Filipino engineers, architects, landscape architects, and planners to cooperate on the incorporation of advanced energy technologies during the design and construction of buildings,” Arroyo pointed out.

Lawmaker seeks green buildingtechnologies in the Philippines

focus on real estate

Documents