MANILA – Cebu Landmasters, Inc., a residential developer in Visayas and Mindanao, sold PHP3.4 billion worth of homes or over 1,500 housing units for economic and mid-market buyers from April to June despite a national lockdown due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.
This brings its total first-half reservation sales to PHP6.2 billion, which is 20 percent higher than the PHP5.2 billion it achieved in the same period last year.
“Our projects have maintained high sales velocity indicating strong demand for houses in the Visayas and Mindanao particularly now that owning a home has become a priority,” CLI chief executive officer Jose Soberano said in a statement Wednesday.
Soberano said CLI only had 10 percent of its residential units available in its inventory as of end-May, and new project launches are currently ongoing to further increase housing inventory.
CLI’s residential portfolio dedicates 50 to 60 percent of the economic segment to fill housing backlogs in Visayas and Mindanao.
A market study of Leechiu Property Consultants, one of the country’s top real estate services firms, projected that Visayas and Mindanao housing backlogs would be at 2.85 million houses by 2022, with an average of 475,000 new housing units adding up to the increasing demand annually.
The study also reveals that 44 percent of this backlog is for economic housing and a total of 200,000 units are needed per year.
Several of CLI’s housing projects are located in cities that allowed construction works to continue, such as Cagayan de Oro, Dumaguete, Bacolod, and certain areas within the province of Cebu as these places were not as badly affected by Covid-19 as Luzon.
CLI projects that remain under construction during the lockdown are sustained by third-party workers following strict health and sanitation protocols and financially supported by the CLI with weekly supplementary allowances to support their livelihood and their families.
“We can see buyers now putting even higher priority in owning a home. Perhaps this is their way of securely dealing with the many uncertainties and investing in housing is as stable as it is necessary,” Soberano added.
CLI vice president for sales Rose Yulo said the company stretched the payment terms, making product offers more attractive for buyers and easy for their pockets, especially during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, CLI recently boosted its digital capabilities, a welcome development during the lockdown period.
“Even prior to the lockdown, we had already foreseen the need to go digital. Early on, we took the necessary measures to make the buying transaction accessible and convenient to our sellers and buyers online – from the selection of properties up to the payment of reservation fees and down payments,” Yulo said. (PR)
