A developer’s responsibility in hard times
The Philippine real estate market is under pressure, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t paying close enough attention.
The condo oversupply will take several years to be sold. The exodus of Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) carved a hole in demand that no one has quite figured out how to fill.
On top of all that, the global economy continues to face uncertainty, further complicated by global and local
political developments that are keeping many on a “wait-and-see” mode. Locally, you have rising interest rates, tightening credit, and cautious buyers sitting on the sidelines waiting to see which way things go.
Wealth creation
I’ve stopped losing sleep over these problems and have instead chosen to focus on what we can do.
What keeps me up is the question of what we, as developers, choose to do with this moment. The real estate industry is an integral part of every nation’s economy, and the decisions we make can contribute either for the better or for the worse.
Real estate, at its best, is a wealth-creation activity. That’s the promise of it. You buy a home, you build equity, your family has a home—hopefully one with value that appreciates over time, something worth passing on to the next generation, or which can be liquidated at the right time with a handsome gain.
It’s easy for the industry to get caught up in the transaction: move the units, hit targets, then on to the next project. But buyers can end up holding properties that didn’t appreciate, in developments that didn’t deliver, with move-in dates that came and went like suggestions.
Homebuyer at the center
At Ovialand, we’ve chosen a different path. We put the homebuyer at the center of everything we do to ensure that we deliver what we committed.
For us, the responsibility of a developer goes far beyond permits and construction timelines. We want to give buyers a genuine shot at an upside by choosing locations with real long-term value, pricing these projects reasonably, and building homes people actually want to live in.
And it’s not just about financial returns. It’s about service, which every homebuyer deserves no matter their budget.
Buyers deserve to know when they can move in, not just a vague “ready-for-occupancy” promise that stretches endlessly. They deserve to have someone explain to them how a bank loan actually works, what the amortization means for their monthly budget, and what their rights are as a homeowner.
Many of our buyers are first-generation homeowners. This is new territory for them. And we’ve made it our responsibility to ensure that they fully understand the transaction before making such a critical decision.
Aware, ready, committed
At Ovialand, we’ve made it our mission to make sure our homebuyers are aware, ready, and genuinely committed, because we want our homebuyers to be successful with this endeavor.
I also think about our employees, our contractors, the hundreds of small businesses that orbit around every housing development.
A struggling industry doesn’t just affect developers and investors—it hits the electrician, the tile supplier, the sari-sari store that opens when a community starts filling up.
Real estate is too woven into the fabric of this economy to be cavalier about how we run our businesses.
Challenging times
It’s been said that even if the war in Iran ends tomorrow, the damage has already been done.
The same could be said of so much that’s unfolding around us. I see challenging times ahead, not just for real estate but for the whole country. The pressures are real, and I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon.
But I also believe moments like this are clarifying. They force us to ask what we actually stand for—to develop real estate that serves the real end-user market, to build with the end user’s upside in mind, and to create communities worth belonging to.
Building, leading better
Now is the time for business, industry and government to lead better, to build the infrastructure that makes housing investments actually worth something, to streamline the processes that slow everyone down, and to protect buyers the way they deserve to be protected.
Our country and our people deserve a fighting chance. And the least we can do is make sure we’re not the reason they don’t get one.
The author is the president and CEO of Ovialand Inc.
