Target: The OFW market

Today's economic crisis forces overseas Filipino workers and their families to rethink how they invet their money. Real estate, a physical investment, has been generally viewed as a safe haven for hardworking OFWs.

Cebu-based company Nexus Real Estate Corp. Has been building and selling property since 2001.

Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are their primary target for their products raging from social housing to high-end residential areas, said vice president for sales and marketing Shanna Louise Te Lopez.

"We're positioned in the middle cost market.It's the price range that PFWs can afford. Based on past developments, 90 percent of our clients are OFWs or Filipinas married foreigners," she told Cebu Daily News.

The company's decision to reach out to more OFWs is supported by solid reasons.

OFW remittances reached $16.4 billion in 2008, an increase of 13.7 percent from the $14.4 billion generated in 2007, according to Iluminada Sicat, director of the Department of Economics Statistics of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, in a recent economic briefing in Cebu.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto noted that while the return of laid-off OFWs may slowdown remittances, inflows of remittances continue to grow in emerging labor markets such as Australia, New Zealand and Guam. These will ill also become sources of resilience of the economy. "Real estate is supported by OFWs and business process outsourcing," said Recto.

POSITIVE UPTAKE

Since most companies are hoping to get larger chunks of the OFW market, who do small companies, like Nexus compete?

"(We are) not all (hesitant in selling projects). We rely on the quality and affordability of our houses.Our houses look high-end at half the price you normally pay for other developments."

"There's a big number of people who still need houses"

For inquiries regarding their housing projects and reservations, you may contact at: (+63 32) 3181589 | +639173236123 .