Property developers urged to explore other territories

The Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) or Pag-IBIG Fund encourages developers in the Visayas to explore other territories as demand for housing units is also rising in emerging cities and provinces outside of Cebu.

Pag-IBIG Fund Visayas department manager for business development Rio R. Teves noted that members based in other provinces in the Visayas like Iloilo, Bohol, and Dumaguete are now availing of home loans and that potential for growth in the side residential builders in these areas are promising.

While Pag-IBIG is implementing programs that attract more members to take advantage of their access to home loans, developers are also called to complement this development while members in other provinces don't have enough choices of housing products.

Teves specifically mentioned the big business potential of residential developers in Iloilo, that even property builders from Luzon are coming in to grab this opportunity.

In fact, real estate market analyst and economist Enrique Soriano in a report singled out Iloilo as one of the most significant cities in the Philippines which is ready to embrace the promising direction of real estate sector in the country.

"We have cities that are swiftly becoming the face of progress and expansion, cities that hold so much potential for investment," Soriano noted.

Iloilo, Soriano believes is on the right spot to live up to the expectations as one of the most-worthy locations for property development.

Teves also said that Bohol is also coming in strong in terms of residential demand not only for horizontal projects or subdivisions, but also residential condominium developers.

Most members in these provinces are also interested to make use of their home loan benefit to take advantage of the low interest rates. Today is the right time to build more residential developments in the emerging provinces in the Visayas.

Pag-IBIG has 400 to 500 active developer partners. The agency is looking at doubling the number of partners in the short term, specifically that the market is consistently on the high track.

Likewise, more programs that are geared to attract developers to borrow with the agency will be introduced soon.

At present, Pag-IBIG is offering maximum loanable amount of P250 million for subdivision project, and P500 million for condominium developments.

With more developers enrolling with Pag-IBIG, more members will be attracted to get home loans with the agency.

Of the 17.3 million members, 95 percent to 96 members are pure savers, which means that these members are not availing housing loans and other financial facilities from the agency.

In 2017, at least P65 billion was allocated for loan facilities including already credit access to developers.