US-based buyers still prefer houses – Lamudi

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos based in the US are still more inclined on buying houses in the Philippines instead of condominium units despite the latter’s boom in major cities across the country, global online property platform Lamudi revealed in its latest report.

Lamudi Philippines said houses remain the most popular choice among Filipino-American “home-hunters.”

Of the millions of searches conducted in its website from US-based property hunters during the first half of the year, Lamudi Philippines said more than half or 57.83 percent of these searches were for houses while those for condominiums came in second at 16.58 percent.

The company said other most searched property types were apartments at 8.54 percent and foreclosures at 2.35 percent.

Buying is also more popular among US-based property hunters as 65.73 percent of all searches were for for-sale properties, while 34.27 percent were for rental properties, the online property platform added.

Lamudi Philippines managing director Jacqueline van den Ende said it latest findings show when it comes to property-hunting, Filipino-Americans remain traditional in many sense as they still prefer houses over condos and other property types.

“This I think is akin to the Filipino mindset that a landed property is a safer and more viable investment vehicle, as land values rarely stagnate, especially when its location is highly sought after,” Van den Ende said.

Van den Ende said Filipino-Americans are a consumer market with formidable size and are the country’s largest population of overseas Filipinos and biggest source of foreign remittance.

In terms of location, meanwhile, Lamudi Philippines said the city most Filipino-Americans are searching for is Quezon City, followed by Makati and Manila.

Lamudi Philippines added that Tagaytay and Baguio are the fourth and fifth most searched cities among US-based property-hunters, outranking other popular sites in Metro Manila like Taguig, Pasig and Mandaluyong.

Lamudi is a global property portal focusing exclusively on emerging markets, generating about one million visitors per month.

Lamudi Philippines last May acquired local counterpart MyProperty.ph to further cement its position as largest online real estate market in the Philippines.