A typical house and lot in Makati City’s premier subdivisions costs more than P200 million, according to a research by online real estate portal Lamudi Philippines.
Lamudi Philippines, in its white paper presented to journalists, says Makati City is the most expensive housing market, both for residential condos and landed houses, based on more than 60,000 property listings on its website.
Rodel Ambas, head of content at Lamudi Philippines, says the average price of houses in Makati stood at P217.3 million as of the first quarter of 2015. Home prices in Makati actually varied, based on gated communities, starting from P35 million in Magallanes Village and P76 million in San Lorenzo Village to P80 million in Bel-Air, P200 million in Dasmariñas Village, P236.3 million in Urdaneta Village and P382.9 million in Forbes Park.
(Photo credit to Lamudi Philippines)
Makati City is way ahead of the second most expensive housing market, Muntinlupa City, home to Ayala Alabang Village, where the average home price was P55.8 million. Taguig City, where McKinley Hills Village is located, ranks third with P34.4 million, followed by Mandaluyong, which is known for Wack-Wack Village with P21.1 million.
Completing the list of cities with highest home prices are Pasig (P19 million), San Juan (17.7 million), Cebu City (15 million), Quezon City (14.6 million), Tagaytay (P13.4 million) and Parañaque (12.2 million).
The prices are based on actual listings at lamudi.com.ph, the top online real estate website used by homebuyers, sellers, developers and brokers.
“These ten Philippine cities now have an average home price of over P10 million,” Ambas says.
He says to buy homes in these cities, a family needs to be earning millions in a year. He says in Parañaque City, the least costly among the 10 cities, a buyer should be earning P4.8 million a year to afford the monthly mortgage for a P12-million home, using the 2.5 rule.
He says according to this rule, a homebuyer can afford to mortgage a home that is 2.5 times of his or her annual income. “If you are making P50,000 a month or P600,000 per year, multiply that by 2.5, the amount of property that you can afford is ….P1.5 million, which is extremely far from the prices in the 10 cities we mention,” he says.
“That rule is something to keep in mind when looking to buy a property in the future,” says Ambas.
The Lamudi white paper also shows that Makati and Taguig are the most expensive condo markets in the Philippines.
As of the first quarter of 2015, Makati’s average condo price was P139,503 ($3,090) per square meter, while Taguig condos had an average asking price of P125,031 per sqm ($2,770).
Ambas says the consolation is that Makati remains a bargain when compared to other key cities in Asia. Condo price in Hong Kong is around $22,814 per square meter, while properties in Singapore sell for $15,251 per square meter.
Lamudi Philippines co-founder and chief executive Jacqueline van den Ende says the numbers are based on the property listings on the company’s website as of the first quarter of 2015. Lamudi, which is present in 34 countries, considers the Philippines as one of its top markets, she says.
Lamudi Philippines acquired MyProperty.ph last year to have a dominant position in the online real estate market in the country. Van den Ende says along with Mexico, the Philippines will receive the bulk of the $31.4-million fund raised by Lamudi Group from investors recently.
“Lamudi Philippines, all around the globe, is the number one focus country for Lamudi. Why? Because the timing here is just right. Our real estate market is booming. More importantly, we are ready to move online here,” she says.
Lamudi is a part of the Rocket Internet Group of Germany, the one behind other successful e-commerce ventures in the Philippines such as Lazada, Zalora, FoodPanda and Carmudi. “The whole shift from offline to online is going very rapidly and that is driving the success for many e-commerce companies…And the Philippines is the number one focus country because it has a lot of potential in e-commerce and online business,” she says.
Van den Ende, a Dutch citizen, says to support the expansion of Lamudi in the Philippines, the company appointed German investment banker Benedict Faber as the chief operating officer.
“In 2016, we want to expand the dominant position of Lamudi and MyProperty, which have a market share of 55 percent of total online real estate market, or almost two to three times bigger than our closest competitor. MyProperty has 150,000 listings while Lamudi has 60,000 listings. We want to really ensure to get every single property for sale or for rent on to the website, so that we are true to our mission of bringing transparency to the real estate market in the Philippines,” she says.
“Together, we have 1.5 million people searching for property on our sites every month,” says Van den Ende.
