Property values skyrocket in Baguio
BAGUIO CITY—Billed as the richest city outside the National Capital Region in 2023 and 2024, Baguio City’s property values have skyrocketed, with downtown Session Road marked up to P300,000 per square meter (sq m) in a new set of land market values that was presented at a Dec. 12 public consultation.
What appeared to be one of the highest-priced real estate in the summer capital to date is Luneta Hill, which adjoins Session Road and is former home to the iconic Pines Hotel, now occupied by the SM City shopping mall, which fetched a steep value of P400,000 per sq m, based on presentation charts shown by the City Assessor’s Office last weekend.
No comparative rates were presented during the consultation, but in 2015, the properties along Session Road, the city’s main commercial area, had a proposed value of P150,000 per sq m.
Parts of the public market, currently the subject of public outrage because of a public-private partnership offer by a mall to construct a P4-billion market building there, averaged between P100,000 and P180,000 per sq m.
Impact report
Government assessors also measured the value of military reservations administered by the Philippine Military Academy and the Navy Base, which is occupied and is a thriving barangay, priced between P19,000 and P35,000 per sq m.
The Baguio City Council will require an impact report before it decides how the new land values would be translated into taxes, said City Assessor Normita Ramon.
Properties near the roads of heavily populated Trancoville have varying prices from P15,000 to P35,000 per sq m. Residents near the roads at another huge settlement, Aurora Hill, have real estate values running from P6, 000 to P25,000 per sq m. South Drive, which has traditionally been the homestead of affluent residents, has real estate worth as high as P100,000 per sq m.
Factors
The impact report must also measure the effect of high real estate values on the city’s Baguio Ibaloy community, said former Cordillera tourism official Pura Molintas, a member of an influential Ibaloy family who resides at Suello Village.
The 14 barangays inside the Camp John Hay forest reservation, where some of the oldest Ibaloy settlements arose, were also valued. Scout Barrio properties near these roads are now worth between P16,000 and P22,000 per sq m.
Some of the other 13 John Hay barangays have lower real estate values. For example, Happy Hollow, which is also the state-recognized Ibaloy ancestral domain, has lands worth P3,000 to P10,000 per sq m.
Baguio’s economy may have been a factor in the high property values. It grew by 9 percent (P169.02 billion) in 2023’s gross city domestic product, and grew much slower by 5.8 percent (P178.85 billion) in 2024.
Last month, the summer capital saw inflation ease, but Baguio still had the highest inflation rate in the Cordillera with 3.1 percent in October and 2.4 percent in November.
