Study reveals property-seeking behaviors of OFWS

UNDENIABLY, one of the biggest contributors to the Philippines’ booming economy is the remittance coming from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Their hard work and sacrifice to be far away from home and from their loved ones have helped keep the country’s economy afloat despite global economic uncertainties.

According to Michael McCullough, managing director of local Savills associate KMC MAG Group, owning a home is a cultural achievement that is very important to all Filipinos — a state of mind that every Filipino, especially those working abroad, harbors and one of the factors that have been driving the local housing market.

In recognition of the hard work of OFWs in providing for their families left behind in the Philippines, global real estate portal Lamudi is making online real estate hunting easy and uncomplicated. With approximately 70,000 property listings online and close to 800,000 users every month (as of May 2017), Lamudi’s onsite data are shedding some light how Filipinos, particularly OFWs, behave while looking for properties online.

Close to five million users visited the Lamudi website in 2016, as of these users, close to 25% are based overseas. The top 10 countries where overseas traffic coming to Lamudi.com.ph are the following:

• The United States leads the pack, with 6% of all users in 2016 came from. This figure corresponds to close to 300,000 website users for the entire year.

• The United Arab Emirates came in second, corresponding to about 2% of all users who visited the website in 2016, which is about 95,000.

• These two countries were followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Canada, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Qatar—countries where there are sizeable Filipino communities.

House and lot came out as the most searched property types for all these 10 countries (equivalent to 61.29% of all searches), followed by condominium (18.11%) and land (15.08%). Commercial properties and apartments corresponded to 3.65 and 1.87% of all searches in 2016, respectively.

In terms of preferred destinations by Filipinos working abroad, Lamudi found out that the top 10 most searched cities include Quezon City, Cebu, Makati, Davao, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Tagaytay, Pasig, Taguig, and Baguio, respectively. The prevailing reasons why these locations emerged at the top may vary, but it can be safe to say that some OFWs buy to get a permanent residence for their families left behind, while others are looking for areas that can be allocated to family members (e.g., college-bound students) in the metro. Likewise, many might also be looking to buy with the intention of having a retirement property in the future (hence, the presence of touristy areas in the top 10 such as Cebu, Tagaytay, and Baguio).