Foreign buyers are snapping up luxury condominium units in the Philippines, a real estate advisor said Thursday.
Rick Santos, president and chief executive of real estate service and workplace solutions advisor Santos Knight Frank, said investment buying activities of foreign investors were driving the growth of the luxury and high-end residential market in the country.
“The luxury and high-end residential markets are set to grow as interest from foreign investors, high net worth individuals and developers continue to increase,” Santos said in a news briefing.
Investors from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Malaysia have expressed interest in buying residential and office condominiums,” he said.
Santos said some foreign investors were buying multiple units with the intention of leasing them out to local and international professionals. This, he said, was driving the demand for high-end condominiums.
Data from Santos Knight Frank showed of the 34,143 high-end residential units floated in the market, 77 percent had already been purchased.
The real estate advisor said while demand was mainly driven by foreign investors, the low interest rate environment, flexible payment schemes and the weaker peso were also attracting affluent end-users to acquire properties.
Indicative selling price per square meter for high-end residential units currently ranges from P120,000 to P185,000 per square meter.
The Metro Manila luxury and high-end residential market remained concentrated in the country’s leading central business districts”•Makati and Bonifacio Global City.
Santos Knight Frank said the market was largely underserved in the past as developers focused on scalability, but it was now seeing an increase in the number of properties. It said 10 luxury residential projects were currently in the pre-selling and construction stage with an overall absorption rate of 86 percent.
Target completion of the projects are in the next two to four years, with indicative selling prices of completed luxury residential properties starting at P180,000 to P350,000 per square meter.
Santos Knight Frank is a part of the Knight Frank network, which operates from more than 400 offices in 60 countries across the globe.
This includes a strategically important partnership with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (including the market-leading West coast and Silicon Valley operations of Newmark Cornish & Carey) in the United States.
Knight Frank is the largest privately owned global real estate consultancy and the world’s top advisor in global residential and commercial properties.
