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CASH
flowed in eight hours in a thousand-square-meter hotel
room here as the country’s wealthiest snapped up
apartment units, the cheapest of which is more than a
quarter of a million dollars for a one-bedroom unit.
Kingdom
Hotel Investment Inc. (KHI) sold on Saturday over a
hundred suites of their high-end Raffles Suites and
Residences Manila, which the company expects completely
built by the second half of 2010.
According to KHI executives, those sold comprised 80
percent of the project’s first phase, representing $50
million or P2.25 billion of sales.
That
sets both a Philippine record for residences sold and
dollar volume and a Raffles record for residences sold
and dollar volume, KHI’s Philippine office
representatives said. Selling of the total 220 Raffles
Residences units at one- to four-bedroom cuts began 8
a.m. Saturday at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel. By
midafternoon, the Dubai, the United Arab
Emirates-headquartered firm already sold all 19
one-bedroom units at the 11th floor where the
residential space begins and one of four four-bedroom
units at the topmost 30th floor.
A
four-bedroom, unfurnished penthouse unit between 383 and
402 square meters (sq m) has a $1.8-million minimum tag
price. At the current foreign exchange rates, that
spells P81 million.
Some 200
buyers were shielded from members of the press by a
white seven-foot wall. KHI staff guarded the entrance to
the buyer’s area.
“Are all
the people here buyers?” a Filipina with her daughter
asked aloud to complain about the lack of seats at the
foyer.
KHI also
declined to reveal the identity of the first buyer of
the penthouse worth P0.2 million per sq m.
A
one-bedroom unit of up to 82 sq m has an initial offer
price of up to $350,000 each. KHI has allotted 80 units
of this type for sale.
The
company was also selling nine two-bedroom units of
between 124 and 164 sq m at an initial price of up to
$390,000. Some 45 of the three-bedroom units, meanwhile,
are up for grabs, with the large-size cuts at $1.25
million each.
Bryan
John Turner, KHI general manager of sales, told
reporters earlier the company is investing P4.5 billion
for the 30-story hotel and condominium building in
Makati City.
However,
the firm’s 2007 Annual Report said initial investment
for the Raffles Manila project is at $153 million
(P6.732 billion at US$1=P44) and would be finished by
the second half of 2010.
Turner
said KHI is targeting a market composed of local “chief
executive officers and prominent vice presidents.” A
third of their target market are expatriates, especially
those from Hong Kong and Singapore, according to Turner.
The
apartment units will be spread from the 11th to the 30th
floor of the building, while the ninth floor and 10th
floor are being reserved for the Raffles Hotel. Fairmont
Makati Hotel will occupy the first up to eighth floor.
Turner
said KHI began the project after buying the 1.2-hectare
lot from Ayala Land Inc., which owns 20-percent equity.
“It’s a
good investment in the long-term,” a female buyer who
declined to be named told the BusinessMirror.
Rising
steel and cement prices, the cost of transporting these,
and tightening consumer spending have struck concern
among realtors that the Philippine property sector’s
growth could slow.
Consultant CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) Philippines Inc.,
which earlier tagged the Philippine market as still
among the “hottest” this year, said demand for
residential properties market “remains strong.”
In a
statement, CBRE Philippines said prices for high-end
residential condominiums in Makati City have risen from
P90,000 per sq m in 2006 to P130,000 per sqm this year.
The firm
credits such price spike to “low interest rates and
flexible financing terms.”
Raffles
Manila is KHI’s third Raffles Hotel project after
Raffles Praslin in Seychelles, Africa and Raffles Da
Nang in China Beach, Vietnam. |
