Philippines' Residential Property Market Analysis 2024

The Philippines' housing market has remained sluggish, weighed down by weak demand and a growing inventory of available units, especially in Metro Manila's central business districts (CBDs).

Table of Contents

• Housing Market Snapshot
• Demand Highlights
• Supply Highlights
• Rental Market
• Mortgage Market
• Socio-Economic Context

Housing Market Snapshot

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In the third quarter of 2024, the average price of a luxury 3-bedroom condominium unit in Metro Manila's central business districts (CBDs) rose by a modest 2.95% to PHP 206,800 (US$3,514) per square meter (sq. m), based on figures from Colliers International. When adjusted for inflation, prices of luxury properties in the CBDs were up slightly by 1% year-on-year in Q3 2024.

On a quarterly basis, house prices rose slightly by 0.49% in Q3 2024 (prices were more or less steady when adjusted for inflation).

The Philippines experienced a house price boom from 2010 to 2018, with house prices in CBDs rising by 125% (77% inflation-adjusted). But with a slowing domestic economy, coupled with the US-China trade war, the housing market slowed sharply in 2019, with house prices rising by a meager 0.9% and falling by 1% when adjusted for inflation. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic aggravated the situation, sending the housing market to its knees. Philippine house prices fell by 14.55% (inflation-adjusted) in the third quarter of 2020 and by the end of the year was ranked among the worst-performing housing markets in our Global Residential Real Estate Market Report of 2020. Metro Manila CBD house prices plunged by 20.16% (inflation-adjusted).

The housing market started to recover in 2022, with prices increasing by 3.93% but still declined by 3.82% in real terms due to high inflation. During 2023, prices in the CBDs were up by another 3.98% but remained more or less steady when adjusted for inflation.

Philippines's house price annual change

The housing market is likely to remain stagnant throughout the rest of the year, with limited house price increases, as property demand continues to weaken.

"Colliers believes that the central bank's decision to reduce basic interest rates is likely to help revive demand in the residential market. Thus far, the central bank has reduced the policy rate to 6% from 6.5% in August 2024," said the Colliers report. "Colliers believes that this will not immediately result in lower mortgage rates, but we recommend that developers sustain or even sweeten their current promos to resuscitate the currently tepid take-up in the Metro Manila pre-selling condominium market."

The Philippine economy grew by 5.6% during 2023, following expansions of 7.6% in 2022 and 5.7% in 2021, and a contraction of 9.5% in 2020, buoyed by strong domestic demand, which was evident in higher household consumption and investments, particularly public infrastructure, according to the Department of Finance.

Then in the third quarter of 2024, the country posted an economic growth of 5.2% from a year earlier, following y-o-y expansions of 6.4% in Q2 and 5.8% in Q1. While the growth remains robust, it marks the second weakest performance since the pandemic.

The Philippine government expects the economy to grow between 6% and 7% this year.

National house price growth slowing

Nationwide, house price increases are slowing. In the second quarter of 2024, the nationwide residential real estate price index rose by a modest 2.7% (fell by 1% in real terms) as compared to a year earlier, according to figures released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country's central bank. Yet it was a noticeable slowdown from y-o-y increases of 6.1% in Q1 2024, 6.5% in Q4 2023, 12.9% in Q3 2023, 14.1% in Q2 2023, and 10.2% in Q1 2023.

Quarter-on-quarter, the index was up by 1.8% in Q2 2024 (1.8% inflation-adjusted).

The residential real estate price index, published every quarter, is based on bank reports on residential real estate loans.

By property type:

• For single detached/attached houses, prices rose by 1.7% y-o-y in Q2 2024 (fell by 1.9% in real terms). Quarterly, prices were up by a modest 3.2% (3.2% inflation-adjusted).
• Duplex house prices saw the biggest y-o-y growth of 27.1% (22.5% inflation-adjusted) in Q2 2024. Yet quarter-on-quarter, prices fell by 2.3% (2.3% inflation-adjusted).
• For condominium units, prices rose strongly by 10.6% (6.6% inflation-adjusted) in Q2 2024 from a year earlier. Quarter-on-quarter, condominium prices increased by 4.2% (4.2% inflation-adjusted) in Q2 2024.
• Townhouse prices, in contrast, fell slightly by 0.8% (-4.4% inflation-adjusted) in Q2 2024 from a year earlier. Quarterly, prices were down by 2.6% (2.6% inflation-adjusted) over the same period.

The pandemic has dragged real house prices further below pre-Asian Crisis levels!

Surprisingly, despite so much price appreciation for a decade, the Philippine housing market has still not recovered from the crash after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Between 1997 and 2004, luxury condominium prices dropped 28% (52% inflation-adjusted), in the biggest property crash of all countries affected by the Asian Financial Crisis.

In current price terms, both rental rates and property values are already far above 1997 levels. Yet in 2019 before the coronavirus outbreak, residential property prices were still about 10% below pre-Asian Financial Crisis levels in real, inflation-adjusted terms.

Worse, the pandemic quickly offset most of the gains in recent years, causing real prices in Q3 2024 to fall back to about 34% below pre-Asian Crisis values.

Demand Highlights:

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OFWs buoy the low- to mid-range market

A visit to any 'Barrio Fiesta' in any city where Philippine OFWs work abroad is dominated by condominium offerings from developers like Megaworld, DMCI, Ayala Land, etc. The Philippines is one of the world's largest remittance recipients, with 10.8 million Philippine Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) living and working in 210 countries and territories worldwide. About 47% of them are permanent migrants, 41% are temporary, and the rest are "irregular migrants".

Among the permanent overseas Filipinos, 65.2% live in the US, followed by Canada (13.1%), Europe (7.1%), Australia (6.8%), and Japan (3.4%), according to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO).

In 2023, total cash remittances amounted to US$33.49 billion, up by 2.9% from a year earlier, based on figures from the BSP. It was equivalent to about 8% of GDP last year. Remittances have been rising continuously since 2002, with an exception in 2020 when remittances declined slightly by 0.8% y-o-y, mainly due to the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the first nine months of 2024, cash remittances totaled US$25.23 billion, up by 3% from the same period last year.

Yet, the rate of growth has noticeably decelerated. From an average annual growth rate of more than 25% in 1990-98, remittance growth slowed to 9% annually in 1999-2008, and further to less than 5% in 2009-2023. The World Bank believes the slowdown in remittances is due to:

• Stricter implementation of the migrant workers' bill of rights;
• Political uncertainties in host countries; and
• The slowdown in the advanced economies.

It is estimated that 60% of these remittances go directly or indirectly to the real estate sector, according to the World Bank. These OFW remittances power the low-end to mid-range residential property market, housing projects, and mid-scale subdivisions in regions near Metro Manila, such as Cavite, Batangas, and Laguna Provinces.

There are three identifiable segments in Manila's housing market:

• The high end. Local high-earners and expatriates occupy this segment.
• The middle tier. The mid-end condominium sector, with a monthly amortization of around PHP10,500 (US$178), presently requires a dispensable income greater than PHP34,962 (US$594), to obtain a housing loan of PHP2 million (US$33,953). This segment has been targeted by many developers and is attractive to overseas foreign workers (OFWs).
• The low end. This is where the mass of the population lives.

We believe that the middle tier is over-supplied. Many of these lower-middle-class condominium developments have low take-up rates.

Affordable housing shortage and the recently launched 4PH housing program

Nevertheless, the Philippines has a huge housing need at the low end. Nationwide, the country has a housing shortage of about 4 million units, according to the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA). However, other estimates put the housing backlog at a huge 6.5 million units.

Most of this would need to be socialized housing - units with a selling price of under PHP450,000 (US$7,639). In Metro Manila, as many as 300,000 households reside in informal and semi-uninhabitable housing units, composing 8.7% of Metro Manila's total population. These people live in appalling conditions. Many others live in very poor conditions.

To meet the needs of these families, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. launched in September 2022 the current administration's flagship housing program "Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino Program" or 4PH, which aims to build a total of 6 million housing units or about 1 million housing units every year until the end of his term in 2028.

Construction is now ongoing for 4PH projects in San Fernando City, Pampanga, Davao City, Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, Tondo, and San Miguel districts in Manila, and Puerto Princesa, Palawan. Additionally, there are over 100 projects in the pipeline, which is projected to build around 415,000 units.

Aside from its main goal of providing the Filipino people with decent and affordable housing, the project also aims to generate around 1.7 million jobs every year from 2023 to 2028.

Before the introduction of 4PH, the government embarked on the National Shelter Program to provide housing for informal settlers and other families who do not have enough income to rent or buy houses at the prevailing market rates.

Socialized housing units or those that cost less than PHP450,000 (US$7,639) can be purchased with a monthly amortization of PHP2,302 (US$39). The Pag-Ibig Fund, (which is the Filipino word for love), the country's state-owned and subsidized housing loan provider, provides a fixed rate of 3% for 30 years for socialized housing units. The problem is that these low-end housing units are usually far from work.

Supply Highlights:

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Condominium supply continues to increase, albeit at a slower pace

The total condominium stock in Metro Manila's CBDs rose by 2.3% to reach 154,700 units in 2023 from a year earlier, a slowdown from annual increases of 6.3% in 2022, 6.5% in 2021, and 2.6% in 2020, based on figures published by Colliers International.

During 2023, completions in the CBDs totaled 3,540 units, a sharp decline from 8,970 units in the previous year, mainly due to the delay of some projects, particularly in the Bay Area including Copeton Baysuites and Grand Westside Hotel South Tower.

The major projects completed last year included Alveo Land's Ametrine at Portino in Ortigas CBD, Federal Land's Grand Hyatt Residences South Tower in Fort Bonifacio, and Palm Beach Villas' Baler and Coron towers in the Bay Area.

Then in Q3 2024, there were about 830 units completed in the CBDs, according to Colliers. Recently, Colliers downgraded its completion projections to 9,860 units for the whole year of 2024, lower than its previous forecast of 11,290 units.

"Colliers recorded the completion of 830 units in Q3 2024. The projects completed during the period are Alveo Land's Cerca Viento Tower 2 in Alabang and four towers of Megaworld's Bayshore Residential Resort in the Bay Area," said Colliers. "We expect the delivery of 9,860 units in FY 2024, lower than our previous forecast of 11,290 units due to the delay in the turnover of two towers of SMDC's Sail Residences in the Bay Area."

Completions averaged around 8,000 units in the past 15 years.

From 2024 to 2026, Colliers International projects an annual average completion of 8,000 condominium units in the CBDs, higher than the annual average completion of 6,200 units in 2020-2023, but still far lower than the 13,100 completions in 2017-19 - a period partly driven by demand from offshore gaming employees.

The Bay Area will account for more than 40% of the expected completions in the next three years, followed by Ortigas Center (22.7%), Fort Bonifacio (14.8%), Alabang (11.5%), and Makati CBD (10.7%). Rockwell Center and Araneta will see no residential construction activity in the next three years.

Overall, Metro Manila's condominium stock is projected to reach around 178,880 units by end-2026, an increase of 15.6% from 2023.

Residential construction activity improving again

After slowing last year, nationwide residential construction activity is now showing signs of improvement, according to the latest figures from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

• The number of residential building permits rose slightly by 0.7% y-o-y to 79,226 in the first three quarters of 2024, following an annual decline of 8.7% in the full year of 2023.
• The floor area of residential building permits increased by 2% to 12.79 million sq. m in the first three quarters of 2024, after falling by 10.4% in 2023.
• The total value of residential building permits was up strongly by 12.9% to PHP 160.13 billion (US$2.72 billion) in Jan-Sep 2024 as compared to the same period last year, following an annual fall of 4.7% in 2023.

In September 2024, about 78% of residential constructions in the country were single-type houses.

The average construction cost for a residential unit was PHP12,243 (US$208) per sq. m in September 2024. Residential condominium units registered the highest average cost at PHP 14,825 (US$252) per sq. m. It was followed by apartments, with an average cost of PHP 10,878 (US$185) per sq. m, and duplex/quadruplex, with PHP 8,588 (US$146) per sq. m.