Last week I discussed real estate players’ aggressive land banking and masterplanning up north. While central and southern Luzon continue to be major expansion sites for national developers, major players continue to scout for other regions to somehow counter the lukewarm demand in the capital region.
What has been evident is the launch of massive townships outside of Metro Manila as well as central and southern Luzon. The Ilocos region is becoming a major plank of developers’ geographic diversification play, with firms zeroing in rising demand for wellness and leisure-centric property developments.
Differentiating townships
Developers are also aggressively landbanking beyond Metro Manila and are integrating retail, hotel, and institutional components such as schools and hospitals into their township developments. Some property firms are also taking a more aggressive stance with their differentiation strategies and are also building massive conference halls, beachfront properties, golf communities, and active lifestyle amenities such as biking and hiking trails.
These amenities and new features of townships enable developers to stand out in a constantly evolving property market.
The allure of leisure
Developers have been taking advantage of the rising demand for resort or leisure-oriented properties outside Metro Manila. These projects were already popular pre-COVID, but the pandemic highlighted the need for these leisure-themed residential enclaves. Among the developers that have leisure-centric properties outside Metro Manila include Megaworld, DMCI, Rockwell, Ayala Land, Robinsons Land, Cebu Landmasters, and Damosa Land, with projects located in Cebu, Davao, Bohol, Palawan, and Batangas. These projects remain popular, and Colliers encourages developers to further assess launching similar projects.
Colliers Philippines believes that these projects will remain popular moving forward, given the improving infrastructure connectivity, rising number of foreign and local tourists (including returning OFWs), as well as the rising popularity of emerging tourist destinations.
First mover advantage
At present, standalone malls developed by national players such as SM and Robinsons are already existing in Ilocos Norte.
The city also offers standalone office towers housing some of the country’s major outsourcing players, such as Accenture, Alorica, Sutherland, and Teleperformance.
With more outsourcing firms and retail looking at attractive office sites outside Metro Manila and up north, Colliers believes that the development of new office towers and retail centres within masterplanned projects in Ilocos makes great sense at this point. With the availability of land, these should be complemented by support facilities such as hotels and other institutional facilities. Indeed, Megaworld’s plan of developing a massive masterplanned community in Ilocos is timely–build it and they will come.
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