By Leslie D. Venzon
MANILA, Dec. 13 (PNA) — The country’s property market is expected to sustain its five to seven percent growth rate in 2016, with the office segment mainly driving this growth, according to property consultancy firm KMC MAG Group Inc.
“The 2016 outlook for the Philippine property market is looking very bright. We see a record amount of office take-up, we see more multinationals and BPOs (business process outsourcing) coming in and expanding so that will create more jobs, which will flow into the residential real estate market as well,” said KMC MAG managing director Michael McCullough in an interview.
McCullough noted that with the ASEAN economic integration, more headquarter companies are looking into doing their operations in the Philippines.
“Office will be the fastest (growing) market segment. That’s where the demand is. That’s where investors have been putting their money in, (as well as) all of the biggest developers,” he said.
McCullough stressed that office will be the fastest growing market segment next year while the residential sector will continue rising.
But he expects property developers building less residential projects in 2016 and catering into mid-end and affordable segment or move into office condominiums market.
“And the retail market seems quite healthy because it’s driven by the 70 percent domestic consumption,” he added.
Further, McCullough believes that the Philippine real estate market fares better than that of Asian neighbors on the back of its high economic growth rates, overseas Filipino workers remittances and the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.
“The Malaysian dollar has dropped. Even the Singaporean dollar has dropped against the US dollar. So this has created some flux in the Asian property market. And the Philippines has been in a very good position to gain from that. It makes it better for the BPOs and it’s better for the OFWs remitting money,” he further said. (PNA)