Philippine economy has slowly shed off the bad image brought about by past administration’s corrupt-laden policies and the country is finally getting the promised rewards of the current President Benigno Aquino III. More is needed to be done to address inequality, but the foundation to address this in the coming years has already been implemented.
To highlight the vast improvement in economic scene, land prices in some areas of Manila just surged by as much as 17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, which is a 16-year high. This is the highest since the Asian financial crisis as accelerating economic growth, rising remittances from Filipino expatriates and record-low borrowing costs fuel demand.
The favourable scenario even prompted the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the largest Philippine pension fund, to plan for a possible biggest-ever sale of real estate assets this year.
With about 730 billion pesos (US$ 16.3 billion) in investable assets, GSIS has initially identified eight properties to sell through public auctions this year, according to President Robert Vergara. They are part of a 31 billion-peso real estate portfolio, based on historical prices, that isn’t earning income. The fund is supposedly turning to real estate sales to bolster returns, anticipating that gains from domestic equities will slow after the benchmark index rose the most among Asian peers since 2008.
“Property prices have increased phenomenally in the past three years,” Vergara, 53, said in a 14 March interview with Ian Sayson and Cecilia Yap. “It seems a good level to finally realize some value while liquidity is plentiful and a lot of investors are interested in land and looking for strategically located properties.”
Assets identified by GSIS for sale account for less than 5 percent of its land holdings include the fund’s former 2,429 square meter (26,145 square foot) office site in Makati and a 3,200 square meter raw property in Fort Bonifacio, a former Army camp adjacent to Makati that’s being turned into a commercial and residential district.
Manila was ranked the fourth most-popular real estate investment destination for 2014, behind Tokyo, Shanghai and Jakarta, according to an Asia Pacific survey by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Among the areas in Metro Manila land prices in Makati registered the highest jump. Home to the nation’s financial district and some of its richest businesspeople, Makati land prices have jumped 28 percent over the last three years to an average 341,505 pesos per square meter, according to U.K.-based Colliers International Plc. That’s the highest level since 1997, said Julius Guevara, the firm’s head of research in the Philippines.
The country’s US$ 250 billion economy expanded 7.2 percent in 2013 and 6.8 percent in 2012, the fastest two-year pace since the 1950s. The central bank has kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at an all-time low of 3.5 percent since October 2012.
