CREBA Expo 2005: Our world under one roof

The CREBA Expo 2005: "Our world under one roof" at the World Trade Center on July 27-30 aims to get together real estate developers, local and foreign investors, financing institutions and banks and the public – buyers and the end-users, especially families striving to become, in a real sense, homeowners.

The CREBA Expo will be the first creative exposition or presentation of the widest range of the country’s property products by the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations (CREBA).

"The target investors and markets, physical arrangements, programs and activities, with the Expo’s aims and objectives, will certainly put the four-day event apart from similar exhibits in size and magnitude," said Rosemarie Basa, CREBA executive vice-president and over-all chairperson of the Expo executive committee.

The exhibitors are developers of upscale, medium, low-cost and socialized housing projects and of medium to high-rise condominiums, retirement villages, time shares, theme parks, farm lots, spas, wellness centers, memorial parks; golf courses and clubs, country and embassy pavilions; suppliers and contractors in housing technology, construction products; banks, insurance companies and government financing agencies such as the Pag-IBIG Fund, Social Security System and Government Service Insurance System.

The expo objectives, Basa said, are to:

– Create a business climate through business matching and other activities, so that at the end of the exhibit proper, the exhibitors would have concluded business transactions with each other or their partners.

– Provide business companies engaged in all forms of real estate development with an exhibit venue to showcase their products in an atmosphere of creativity and distinct style.

– Bring investors and exhibitors from the international market to tie-up with local counterparts and suppliers.

The Expo’s special concern, according to Basa, is to offer the public and interested buyers from the middle to the high-end sectors greater opportunities in real estate purchases and transactions. But of great special concern, she said, is the middle-income families looking for a chance of acquiring/owning apartments or single-detached houses-and-lot packages for "home-sweet-homes" through 15-to-20 year monthly amortizations at rates even lower than what they now pay as mere rent, in order to become actual, not only virtual, homeowners.

Members of the Expo executive committee are Purita Soliven, Avelina Acuña, Teresita Millan, Efren "Choy" Alas, Pedro Tario, and Jimmy Cura, CREBA national president, adviser.

The CREBA Expo 2005’s "movers and shakers" are Reghis Romero II, ways and means; Ed Sese, structural; Dinky Einsiedel, space planning; Henry Olonan, president, United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) Andy Villarin, president, Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA); Maryanne Expina, president, Philippine Association of Landscape Architects (PALA); Francis Dangalan, president, Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners (PIEP); Choy Alas and Bobby Alvarez, business matching; Roger Garcia, media; Raffy Galvez and Toto Laraya, interior designers; Melanie Siena Lapore, creative artist; Andrew Que and Jing Expiritu, special events; Popoy Magno, forum; Bong Casten and Linky Nepomuceno, event operations.