DAVAO CITY—This premier southern Philippine seaport is becoming the most frequently inquired city after Cebu City for foreigners and overseas Filipinos seeking real-estate investments in the Philippines, a Filipino real-estate company executive with an active online site said here on Friday.
The city is turning in significant numbers in inquiry from the online realtors’ site, FilipinoHomes.com, that kept tract of all interests in acquiring or renting properties for personal and commercial intention in the Philippines, said Arthur M. Gonzales, vice president for Mindanao of the group that also carried the name of the Internet web site that serve as a search portal for Philippine real estate.
On certain days, the site would monitor an average 2,000 inquiries daily from across the world, but the bulk of them still coming from overseas Filipino workers, he said.
There are other online search portals on real estate in the Philippines but he said all indications were pointing at this city as the preferred site for renting and acquisition of properties “after Cebu.”
“Cebu is still the most sought place for real estate, propelled mainly by the presence of major global players in the business-process outsourcing,” he said.
However, the long period over which Cebu has lorded over the choice places after the national capital, “We can say that it is now on its 7 p.m. stage, where there would already be a saturation of acquired properties.”
“Davao City is now on its 4 p.m. level, where investors and people looking for residential and commercial spaces are currently scrambling for contacts and looking around for suitable sites,” he added.
Aside from its significant improvement in atmosphere in doing business, Davao City also rode high on the overall splendid national economic growth and better climate for investment.
He said FilipinoHomes.com is Filipino-owned company that is currently tagged in the level of similar Web-linked real-estate companies Century21.com and Remax, the two high-profile US realtor Web portals, and its tracking of investments going into real estate was logged at P8 billion in 2013. “That’s for our portal alone, and did not include yet the transactions from the other private web sites and the free online social-networking sites.
“We can say that real estate remains a very robust and active industry in the Philippines even up to the immediate future,” he said.
In this city alone, “we have monitored not less than P20 billion worth of investments to be built within the next three year.”
In fact, he said, “All the major real-estate developers and construction companies are already here in the city.”