Real estate to pick up in ’02

Low-cost and economic housing producers affiliated with the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA) have expressed confidence that the local housing and property development business will pick up starting next year, arising from the expected public expenditures under the national shelter program geared towards social amelioration, new job generation and economic pump-priming.

Noel S. Gonzales, SHDA national president, noted that the firming up this year of a supportive economic environment and macroeconomic policies to bolster a mass housing comeback serve to boost private housing sector confidence in realizing the emerging business prospects next year.

As an example, bulk of President Arroyo’s state-of-the-nation housing commitments to make available at least 100,000 housing units to the formal sector and 50,000 units to be informal sector up to July 2002, with a conservative estimated value in loan expenditures of at least P30-billion, will begin to be produced and delivered during the first half of next year, so as to spark a flurry of production of activities, Gonzales projected.

Among the major indicators that point to the preparations already made this year to deliver on this political and socio-economic commitments include the issuance of Executive Order No. 45, which effectively reduces to 90 days the permit issuance process for a housing subdivision development to commence, he cited.

"This is a strong and significant signal, which perhaps no other administration had attempted to make. And if the government could deliver on this commitment to reduce administrative and bureaucratic delays, then the private housing sector has reason to expect the attainment of the government’s housing targets up to next semester of year 2002," Gonzales emphasized.

Another signal that the administration is bent on delivering on its housing commitments is the joint executive and legislative efforts for the creation of a Department of Housing that could provide a unified direction and control on the government programs and resources directed towards low-cost housing delivery, he said.

However, a key component of this housing delivery system that needs further strengthening is the provision of an effective guarantee mechanism to private sector loans for subdivision development and mortgage financing, which is critical to the participation of both government and private financial institutions.