Century Properties Group Inc. and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corp. formed a P5-billion joint venture company to build affordable housing projects across the Philippines.
CPG said in a statement Phirst Park Homes would be 60-percent owned by the local company, with the rest of the stake controlled by the Japanese trading giant. It initially plans to launch 15 projects within the next five years offering 33,000 house and lot units, with total sales value of P57 billion.
The company is now in the planning stage of land banking and has already identified eight sites for future developments.
CPG said while Phirst Park Homes was initially looking at Calabarzon and Central Luzon for the house and lot developments, it had plans to eventually expand to Visayas and Mindanao once it established technical and market scale in Luzon.
“Our joint venture partnership with Mitsubishi Corp. solidifies Century’s plans of diversification and strengthens its positioning not just in the affordable housing category but in the broader first home buyer market,” CPG chairman and chief executive Jose Antonio said.
CPG and Mitsubishi decided to expand their initial partnership following the success of its first affordable housing venture in Tanza, Cavite.
PHirst Park Homes Tanza, launched in 2015, offered 3,000 housing units at P1 million to P3 million per unit. CPG said that within eight months of the project launch, PHirst Park Homes Tanza sold 98 percent of phase 1m with reservation sales reaching P1.4 billion.
“The big housing demand coupled by the natural and good chemistry between Century Properties and Mitsubishi Corp. led us a great milestone today, the signing of an agreement to form a joint venture company for affordable housing. This is not just one project, but for a long-term relationship that will make significant contributions in addressing housing backlog in the Philippines,” Mitsubishi general manager of Asean urban development department Hidetoshi Suzuki said.
Suzuki said Mitsubishi planned to bring to the partnership its expertise in development and technology which would differentiate the company’s product offerings from what were available in the market and at the same time give homebuyers better living environment.
PHirst Park Homes said it would target first-time home buyers and overseas Filipino workers for its housing projects with monthly amortization range of P7,000 to P15,000, depending on the size of the units.
The joint venture partners said they expected to capitalize on the country’s huge demand for affordable housing, with an estimated backlog of 6.6 million units.