Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. plans to exit the socialized and economic mass housing business to focus on high-end horizontal and vertical development and take advantage of increasing per capita spending of Filipinos, a top executive said Thursday.
Vista Land chairman Manuel Villar Jr. said in a news briefing the company would initially launch 44 Vista Estates over the next 12 months.
Vista Estates will include residential condominiums, business parks and IT zones, financial centers, institutional complexes, hotels and commercial and retail districts. The company is expected to spend P136 billion for every 100 hectares of development.
Villar said these estates, covering a total of 1,438 hectares, are located in 23 cities across the country.
“We are launching all these 44 Villar Estates, and we are leaving the mass housing already, particularly socialized and economic housing projects,” said Villar, who started his real estate business by building mass housing projects.
He said the company would focus on affordable, middle-income and high-end horizontal projects.
Most of the properties for Villar Estates were acquired over the past several years. Villar said that as land values have gone up significantly, it only makes sense to develop them into vertical developments.
Socialized housing projects cost P2 million and below, while economic housing projects cost around P550,000 and below.
Villar said with the shift, Vista Land would focus on housing projects costing P4 million or higher. Its affordable housing brand Camella offers housing projects worth P4 million to P6 million.
“I am optimistic coming in 2022, and with the optimism you’ll see a shift,” Villar said.
Villar, who was recently named as the country’s richest by Forbes Magazine, is betting on the expected increase in per capita income of Filipinos that will result in more families capable of buying affordable houses.
Vista Land’s vertical development accounts for 5 percent of total sales. Villar said with the launch of the 44 estate developments, vertical developments would exceed the sales of horizontal projects.
He said the company was planning to launch Vista Estates two years ago, but the pandemic forced it to defer that project.