Big property surge in the Philippines!
Despite the recent floods, an extraordinary change of mood has gripped the Philippines, the sense of a new beginning. After a depressing decade of misgovernment under two corrupt presidents, Joseph Estrada (1998-2001) and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (2001-2010), with the election in 2010 of the honest and reformist President Benigno (“Noynoy”) Aquino 111, a clean and competent government is successfully attracting foreign investment. It also benefits from simple good luck. This (partly) English-speaking country finds itself ideally positioned to take advantage of the global outsourcing boom. Employment is surging, skyscrapers are going up, unemployment is falling, the malls and restaurants are full, and there’s the happy sound of money ringing in shopkeepers’ tills.
As always happens in countries enjoying economic growth and fundamental structural reform, house prices are rising sharply. In the first quarter of 2012, the average price of a luxury 3-bedroom condominium in Makati CBD rose 4.8% to PHP 114,000 (USD 2,727.53) per sq. m. (q-o-q), according to Colliers International, or by 10.68% during the year to Q1 2012 (7.34% when adjusted for inflation).
