MANILA, Philippines - Bahay Financial Services (BFS), the country’s only mortgage servicer and special asset management company handling a portfolio of more than 52,000 highly delinquent loan accounts from the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. (NHMFC), has granted reprieve to homeowners whose properties were damaged by Typhoon Glenda. Setting a number of cases resolved in the last two months, BFS resolved a total of 442 cases – 222 in June and 220 in July, through flexible terms and convenient means to safeguard ownership of homes. “On fortuitous events we have to be more flexible to borrowers. We work together to keep their homes and we are well-equipped to accommodate their needs,” said BFS president Federico Y. Cadiz. BFS exhausts all possible means to a ‘home fix’ by coming up with special rates and offers on a case-to-case basis to provide sound advice to clients for speedy case resolutions.Well-trained and equipped to handle cases, BFS account specialists work to offer to the borrowers the best solutions to keep their homes. Visit any of the BFS offices in Makati, Alabang and Davao, or call BFS through trunklines756-6230 or 750-3888, the Davao office direct through (082) 221-0809, or call PLDT toll-free outside of Metro Manila and Davao through 1-800-10-2255-BFS (237). BFS is also reachable through text at 0922-9999-BFS, via email at info@bfs.com.ph, and real time online by accessing www.bfs.com.ph and clicking on B-Online.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Megaworld to build Western Visayas’ tallest residential tower in Iloilo Business Park
ILOILO CITY, Philippines - Megaworld, the country’s leading real estate developer and pioneer of townships, introduces another modern luxury residential condominium that is poised to be the tallest building in the region. Standing 80 meters high at 22 storeys, The Palladium will also be Western Visayas’ first residential tower with its own skygardens in various floors overlooking the spectacular views of the booming city.
“Since last year, we have been experiencing consistent growth in the demand for residential towers in Iloilo Business Park. Everyday, we get inquiries about new projects and everyone wants the best views and amenities from the condominiums that they look for. That is why selling the four towers of our first two residential projects, One Madison Place and Lafayette Park Square, was very easy. And now, we are on our fifth tower which will be offering another set of unique, first-of-its-kind amenities and features that Ilonggos can boast of,” says Jennifer Palmares-Fong, head of marketing, Iloilo Business Park.
Named after one of the earth’s rarest precious elements, The Palladium will be built as a stylish urban oasis with four skygardens where residents can relax and enjoy serene moments with nature.
Named after one of the earth’s rarest precious elements, The Palladium will be built as a stylish urban oasis with four skygardens where residents can relax and enjoy serene moments with nature.
A total of 482 units ranging from studio (from 29.50 square meters), executive studio (from 39.50 square meters), one-bedroom (from 49.50 square meters) to two-bedrooms (from 83.50 square meters) will be available at The Palladium which will be divided into North Wing and South Wing. At the topmost floor of the tower, there will be exclusive loft units ranging from 76 square meters to 115 square meters.
Residents of The Palladium will also get to enjoy the state-of-the-art amenities that the tower offers. These include an infinity pool, a children’s pool, outdoor and indoor fitness center, day care center, lawn area for events, and a function hall.
From the outside, the first two levels of The Palladium will be allocated for commercial and retail shops.
“We are offering a unique living experience at The Palladium. Our loft units will be first-of-its-kind in Iloilo City and the entire Western Visayas, and our amenities will raise the bar of this city’s lifestyle for our future residents,” adds Palmares-Fong.
Iloilo Business Park is a 72-hectare township development, which is poised to be the Western Visayas’ biggest business and tourism hub located at the site of the old airport in Mandurriao district.
Megaworld has allotted P35-billion for the development of the township in the next 10 years, making it the company’s biggest single investment outside Metro Manila. Iloilo Business Park will be home to luxury residential condominiums, state-of-the-art Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) office towers, a Megaworld Center Mall, a 1.1-kilometer Festive Walk commercial and retail strip, open parks, transport hub, first-class hotels such as Richmonde Hotel Iloilo and Courtyard by Marriott Iloilo, and the much-anticipated 3,700-seating Iloilo Convention Center.
The Iloilo Business Park is expected to bring Megaworld’s pioneering ‘LIVE-WORK-PLAY-LEARN’ township to Western Visayas, following the success of other townships such as the 18.5-hectare Eastwood City, known to be the Philippines' first IT park; the 50-hectare McKinley Hill, 34.5-hectare McKinley West in Fort Bonifacio; the 15.4-hectare Uptown Bonifacio and the five-hectare Forbes Town Center in Bonifacio Global City; the 25-hectare Newport City in Pasay City, home of the famous Resorts World Manila; the 12.3-hectare Woodside City in Pasig City; the 11-hectare Davao Park District in Lanang, Davao City; and the 28.8-hectare The Mactan Newtown in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. For Project Inquiry, call +63917.3236123.
Bids open for P19-B Kaliwa Dam project
MANILA, Philippines - The government is eyeing to have a new dam developer by next year after it started the ball rolling on Friday for the bidding of the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam project in Rizal.
PPP Center executive director Cosette V. Canilao said the government would award the water project next year, possibly within the first half at the earliest.
“Bid submission will probably be next year, but start of the bid process is this year. So prequalification first, after prequalification those who are qualified will proceed to the bidding stage,” Canilao said.
The Kaliwa Dam would serve as a secondary water source for Metro Manila once developed. At present, Metro Manila sources 97 percent of its water requirements from the Angat reservoir in Bulacan.
The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) on Friday started seeking prospective bidders for the P19-billion Kaliwa Dam project.
The winning bidder for the Kaliwa project would construct the 600 million-liters-per-day (MLD) dam, a 2,400 MLD water conveyance tunnel, access roads, bridges and drainage to be used in the building of the dam.
The project would be implemented under a 25-year or a 30-year build-transfer scheme, which would cover project financing and construction.
MWSS earlier said the new dam is being eyed to be completed by 2020.
Sta. Lucia Land Inc. makes waves in Davao City
DAVAO City, the third most populous city in the Philippines, is not only the largest in the world in terms of land area—it is also one of the world’s finest cities with the fastest-growing economies.
In fact, it was cited by the City Mayors Foundation as the 87th fastest-growing city in the world in 2011 with a projected average annual growth of 2.53 percent over a 15-year period. Moreover, Davao is an investor- friendly city, offering the lowest local tax rates for new investments.
It is, therefore, no wonder that the city is currently under the spotlight of local and foreign investors across industries. One of the big names that have made its mark—and one of the bigger forces to reckon with in the real-estate industry—in Davao City is property developer Sta. Lucia Land Inc. (SLI), which currently has nine developments in the city, including residential and recreational properties.
SLI has developed over 10,000 hectares of land with over 200 horizontal and vertical development projects throughout the country. Since its inception in 1972 by members of the Robles-Santos family, the company focused on building planned residential subdivisions communities that cater to the emerging middle class.
Likewise, it has developed the 10.5-hectare Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall in Cainta, Rizal, as well as a leading developer of golf courses in the Philippines, having developed the largest number of golf courses in the country.
Believing in the potential of Davao
“DAVAO City is the growth center in the south,” said SLI president and chief executive officer Exequiel Robles. “It is also an ideal investment as the city is generally peaceful, making it inviting for investors.” With nine developments under the company across the city, SLI proves to be a driving force when it comes to subdivision developments. Robles cites the stiff competition in the city as there are both Davao-based and the bigger Manila-based developers, but SLI is the biggest, especially in terms of land area.
Davao developments
AS SLI boasts its status as one of the leading developers of golf courses in the country, two of its developments in Davao have golf courses—Rancho Palos Verdes, a 164-hectare master-planned estate located in Mandug, Indangan, complete with a golf course, a golf club, and residential homes with a Spanish-Mediterranean theme; and South Pacific Golf and Leisure Estates, the first exclusive leisure estate in Catalunan Pequeño that will give members unlimited access to both golf and country club and beach.
Rancho Palos Verdes has a 77-hectate, 18-hole all-weather championship golf course that uses Tifton and Tifdwarf grass imported from Atlanta, Georgia. Its golf club has a fine-dining restaurant, locker rooms, multipurpose function hall and massage room. Members can also enjoy lifetime use of the club’s fitness gym with Jacuzzi and sauna rooms and beach-type swimming pool. It also offers other sports amenities like lawn tennis court, indoor badminton and basketball courts, bowling, table tennis and billiards.
South Pacific Golf and Leisure Estates, on the other hand, takes pride in its Arnold Palmer Golf Course, an exquisitely designed 18-hole full-length open course. Aside from the usual amenities that SLI provides its communities such as a swimming pool, basketball court, wide concrete network, underground storm drainage system, and centralized interrelated water system—residents of South Pacific Golf and Leisure Estates get to have the chance of waking up to the sight of the sea’s endless expanse as they are also entitled membership to the Bali Hai Beach Club on Talikud Island.
Meanwhile, Davao Riverfront Corporate City is a 60-hectare community that is master planned to be a self-sufficient city within a city. Corporate offices in a well-secured 45-hectare business park, a 10-hectare residential subdivision, and a five-hectare tourism center are all seamlessly constructed to be Davao’s business center point.
Other residential offerings of SLI in Davao that are ready for occupancy include Alta Monte Residential Estates in Barangay Tigatto, Buhangin; Ciudad Verde in Tugonon; Valle Verde Residential Estates in Panacan; and the 17-hectare South Grove in Matina—all are first-class communities with amenities that are sure to provide security and comfort to its residents.
Lastly is Ponte Verde, a 28-hectare high-end subdivision located along the Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway in Panacan. A stone’s throw away from the Davao International Airport, this well-developed community is strategically accessible to all forms of public transportation and a variety of commercial and recreational establishments.
With the first half of the income target already met, there is no stopping SLI from moving further. “SLI is very active in developments, and we have started venturing into condotels and condominiums,” said Robles. He reports that the company has embarked on a new multibillion-peso condotel project at the top of Punta Engaño in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, and has an ongoing 7.7-hectare property development project in Dagupan City.
He also says that SLI is looking into doing a project in General Santos City and Palawan.
“Our marketing arm, Orchard Property Marketing Corp., is very active as well, with international offices in the United Kingdom, Dubai, Singapore and the US, aside from the local offices nationwide,” he continued.
It is apparent that SLI has a lot in store for the market in the coming years, including a second mall in two years, but Robles says the company is more focused on subdivision development, a segment in the realty industry it has a firm grip on.
Real-estate branding in the age of Asean integration
THE business of real-estate development remains one of the Philippines’ strongest economic pillars. Much of the success the entire sector has enjoyed over the past few years may be attributed to the milestones achieved by developers who have capitalized on the growth opportunities that have come our way.
In other countries, real-estate companies are far less prominent than they are here in the Philippines. Local developers that thrive in today’s market view trends as anchors for introducing innovations to today’s local homebuyers. However, with the impending establishment of the Asean integration next year, leading local developers will soon find themselves facing even stiffer competition with foreign companies and brands eventually flooding Philippine shores.
As more players come into the market, trends in the real-estate sector will be felt more prominently, thus highlighting the immense impact that branding initiatives bring to the table. The reason why branding is more important for developers here in the Philippines to prioritize over other things, like sales for example (don’t get me wrong. Sales play a very important role in the business cycle, but one must be able to first establish a system that will allow profit to flow in more efficiently), is because there is less government oversight for construction. Building brand trust plays a big deal, and to be able to do that, one would need to undertake an extensive branding campaign.
More players,
more opportunities
Once the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) formally establishes a single-market community next year, the first major change will be the observance of a more liberalized trading among the participating countries—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
This development will result in the emergence of a vast economic market composed of 600 million people, which easily accounts for at least 8 percent of the global population—occupying an estimated 4.6 million square meters of prime real estate. There will be an immediate removal of both tariff and non-tariff barriers on both goods and services among the member nations, which, in turn, is expected to establish deeper, better economic ties among the stakeholders in the region. Aside from this, local developers will also get a more favorable access to a bigger resource—the regional work force which will likely play a huge role in fueling a stronger exchange of best industry practices and ideas among the participating countries.
The market integration will also result in stronger capital inflow and investments—something that the Philippines will welcome with open arms. This will only help emphasize the country’s economic edge, and puts the Philippines in a position it wants to be. As I’ve said in my earlier columns, this development will allow the Philippines to showcase its renewed capability to lure investors and sustain good business returns, particularly for foreign businesses wishing to establish presence in the region.
The entry of foreign developers carrying a host of real-estate brands will also impact the rate of construction activity in the country. The construction industry will likely set a record pace once the Asean integration kicks off, which means mixed-use residential districts will rise in various areas of the country alongside retail, commercial and other industrial developments (road networks, transportation hubs and many others). Skilled workers will be more in demand than ever, as more and more developers look to sustain the rapid pace of property development in the country.
Addressing the biggest challenge
However, the free market may counterbalance, or may act in an entirely different fashion, which will likely drive up the quality while driving down the cost. As more international players step into the picture, they might not win because people know them; they will probably win due to innovation and quality, and by utilizing the independent broker network that the current industry has created before them.
This was the challenge that previous industry practices have created ahead of the sector’s growth. Developers who looked at real-estate sales as their primary target have created the seed for the industry’s own demise by creating their independent network, thus opening the doors for foreign developers to come in and tap that existing market without difficulty.
Oftentimes, people don’t look at the larger implications of what they’ve been doing as long as they are reaping the rewards of their efforts. The sad fact about this situation is that they’ve created this environment: foreign developers come in, recruit local sales force, and tap the market that they have at hand. And now, the only legitimate differentiator that they can take advantage can only be achieved by undertaking an extensive branding campaign to help the market understand what they truly stand for.
At the end of the day, what the Asean integration really does is to raise the standards for urban development. A huge, diversified market—similar to the system and structure that the European Union implements—only brings out the best out of each participating country by intensifying the competition and urging players to step up their branding efforts several notches higher. As local players chase newfound economic opportunities, we expect to see developers becoming more globally competitive by anchoring their branding campaigns on their respective strengths and expertise.
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