Cebu real estate boom swells realtors’ profits

Updated August 16, 2008 12:00 AM

Due to Cebu’s evident boom in the real estate sector with several ongoing housing developments in the area, realtors are reaping positive prospects as they have more properties to sell thus increasing their profit margins.

In an interview with Gerry B. Yangyang, president of the Association of Realtors Board Inc.-Cebu Realtors Board Inc. (PAREB- CEREB), he shared their association’s confidence with Cebu’s booming real estate sector.

Yangyang said that as compared to five or 10 years ago, Cebu’s real estate sector has already gone a long way as now more new and big players have already joined the ball game.

He said that although there have been emergence of several competition offering different housing types; there are still plenty of room to capture the ever growing and evolving market.

“Its very different now because compared to before, there were not as many developers yet but now there are new developers and the sector is in a state of boom. There are also more buyers now as the demand is very great for real estate these days,” he stressed.

He said that in the country as a whole, it has been reported by a public sector agency that there is still around three to five million backlog of houses and this statistics reflects the big market that is waiting to be tapped.

Since they earn by commissions, Yangyang sees the upsurge of Cebu’s real estate industry as an opportunity for realtors to receive higher income.

As a standard rate, realtors receive commissions from real estate developers of up to five percent to as high as eight percent depending upon the discretion of a particular company.

“The boom in the real estate helped realtors individually to gain higher sales and profits thus by generating increase of income,” he said.

With the continuous boom in the sector Yangyang believes that the unprecedented surge in the country’s inflation will not inadvertently cause a downtrend in their sales but instead it will not hinder developers to further pursue more projects in turn providing more opportunities for them.

“The increasing prices of oil and the prices for construction materials has affected the pricing of units but although this has decreased the affordability of buyers, its effects are just minimal and we believe that economic fundamentals will stabilize in time,” Yangyang pointed out.

And despite these minimal effects brought about by inflation, the number of housing buyers have not decreased which still showed the market’s bullishness with the real estate industry,” he said.

Yangyang also noted the impact of the continuous overflow of careers and job opportunities in Cebu which he said could have attributed to this positive outcome.

“Because of the presence of many job opportunities, prospective buyers right now are still able to produce income that enables them to afford a particular housing investment,” he said.

PAREB- CEREB has been established in the 1960s and right now the organization is composed of about 180 members.

They recently organized their First Cebu Real Estate Expo 2008 at SM City Cebu featuring top local real estate companies such as the AboitizLand Inc., Taft Property Ventures, Club Ultima, Pacific Land Ventures, Maria Luisa Properties, MSY Holdings, Corp. Eastland Property Ventures Inc., Camella Communities, as well as developers composed of Geo-Estate Land Development Corp, Syntech Properties, Nexland Ventures Estate, Anita’s Subdivision, and among others.

For comments, rejoinders you want to share or inquire, or learn more about Cebu Real Estate Industry, Call..

Realtor SAMUEL LAO, REBL#1341

PAREB-Cebu Realtor's Board Inc. (2nd VP Elect,2009)
RealtyOPTIONS Marketing & Consultancy Inc.- President/CEO
Tel Nos: (+63 32) 5166194 / 2550374
Mobile: (+63 918) 9236123 / 0922.8236123
www.laosamuel.com
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