By Rhia de Pablo
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Troubled with the impact of the US financial crisis which resulted from the previous housing bubble, Filipino developers are urged by Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council chairman Noli De Castro to continue investing on residences for the Filipinos.
Along with this plea, De Castro announced the good news in the recently concluded Housing National Developers Convention and Exhibition held in Cebu that the price ceiling for socialized housing package will be increased from P300, 000 to P400, 000 as a new order will soon be out.
De Castro said that despite woes in the United States about recurring financial situations caused by the bubble in its housing sector, Filipino developers still have several reasons to be joyful.
He said that despite the increase of the price ceiling of the socialized housing package, Pag-Ibig will still continue to provide the six percent interest of every minimum housing loan so that they can maintain the consistencies of their policies to make housing accessible to many Filipinos.
He said that they are “on track” in keeping interest rates at the lowest under any government housing institution.
“Crisis is still far from over and this year still continues to be challenging for us but as we continue to see these global developments of financial crisis we should not be alarmed because with our partnership and policies on housing the sector still have reason to remain optimistic,” De Castro pointed out.
He also noted that the increased loan allocation of the Housing Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) otherwise known as Pag-Ibig will give developers good reason to continue building houses as they are assured that these will be taken out.
De Castro said that from last 2001’s P10 billion allocation, Pag-Ibig has been given P30 billion loan allocation this year and that they have exceeded the P15 billion marks for guaranteed housing loans already.
“We have been able to cut red tape on the housing permit processing and we have already started implementing the instruction of the President’s SONA that SSS and GSIS should increase its investment for housing,” he said.
There is no crisis in the past that the Filipino people are not able to overcome. Now, will we expect a slowdown in the sector with these economic crises at hand? We have gone through mistakes in our past and we have leaned from these mistakes so the housing sector is stronger and we know better,” he said.
He added that with the collapse of our United Housing Lending program in the past as well as the asset participation certificates (AFC), the sector should now be able to manage risks and be able to take prudent measures.
Other future plans that the Government will pursue that will be beneficial to the housing sector will be the issuance of the first mortgage backed securities and the review of housing policies for loopholes, he said.
“Building and owning a home is not just a matter of personal investment but it’s a part of fulfilling a dream Everything is in place to keep the housing sector moving forward and it’s now up to the sector kung maduduwag tayo sa financial crisis (if we will be afraid of the financial crisis),” the vice president said.
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