Build-to-own condo: One man’s towering dream

This man has a towering vision/mission: to enable the neglected middle class to build their own high-rise condominium in a high-end location at low cost.

He’s kidding, right? Dead wrong! The truth is, architect Gilbert Yu has turned many a dream into concrete realities: think more than 1,000 high-rise buildings, from hotels to shopping malls to resorts, here and abroad over more than three decades that his company G&W has been building buildings and housing people.

"In the Philippines, the middle-class people are the most neglected, nobody takes care of them," asserts this concerned architect. "We have a complicated class structure. In Singapore, it’s very simple – there’s the rich and then there’s the middle class. Here, we have the A, B, C classes and many more in between those classes. We have the filthy rich – you know how they became filthy – and the hardworking rich. There are three or four middle classes that are not being taken care of. Using my architectural skills and what I learned about condominiums in Singapore, Japan, and China – combining their successes with the needs of the Philippines – I was able to come up with very high quality homes in a quality location but at a price the middle income class can afford."

To B or not to B. Yu knows the ABCs of his job only too well. "The B middle class consists of professionals like nurses, accountants, employers, and even doctors. The B++ is made up of those who already own their own enterprises or businesses. The B middle class has an aggregate monthly income of P60,000 and up. We try to house them in a good location."

Reaching for the stars with his feet planted in the ground, Yu shares the Singapore experience: "In Singapore, the government subsidizes land; it’s the richest landowner. There, anywhere you live, you’re only 10 minutes to your workplace. If you’re from the A class who travels by car, you’re 15 to 20 minutes to where you work. The B+ class who travels by MRT is maybe 20 to 30 minutes away while the B- class is 35 minutes away. Everything is workable, housing is affordable. There’s infrastructure and transportation, and there’s precious time to spend with your family."

Drawing on the Lion City’s wealth of experience, Yu makes this growling pitch: "Our government should subsidize land costs. Before I came in, only the super rich could afford to live at the Global City. That is wrong because the middle class is the backbone of the economy. But you may ask, ‘What’s in it for the government?’ The government really stands to gain. If these condo residents earn more money, they will pay more taxes."

Despite his lowly beginnings, Gilbert Yu dared to dream high, but that’s getting ahead of his beautiful story. "I’m one of nine children of a sari-sari store owner," he relates. "At 40, my father contracted tuberculosis. So when I was in high school, a week before the final exams, the treasurer of Chiang Kai Shek High School came to my class and told me I could not take the exams because I had not settled my school fees. I was so ashamed I wanted to hide under the table. But wherever I went, my classmates followed me. I was very outgoing and made friends easily. I tutored my classmates in math so I could pay for my school tuition. My classmates paid me P30 a month for tutoring and that was a lot of money at the time. This paid for my tuition and some nice clothes because my mother said I could keep the money I earned. I enrolled at Mapua to take up architecture, but in third year, I already learned everything I needed to know about architecture – I borrowed books from the senior students, made friends with them, borrowed their works, went to see samples of their drawings."

Fueled by a burning desire to finish college, Gilbert found a job as a gasoline station attendant. He recounts, "I kept accounts and filled up tanks, if there was no gasoline boy. Then, one day, I read an item in the Classified Ads looking for a draftsman. I showed them my work. In my third year in architecture, I designed my first home, which then cost P150,000 but is now easily worth P15 million. It was the house of my classmate, Carlos Chan, now an entrepreneur, and it still stands in Pasay City."

To make a long story even longer, it took Gilbert 10 years to finish architecture. "I concentrated on my job as a draftsman," says Gilbert. "Mapua was a good school and if I didn’t study hard, I would surely fail. So I stopped studying for two to three years. I was also afraid that being Chinese, I could not take the architecture board exams. So I filed for naturalization. I put up my own firm and partnered with a civil engineer. But then I realized that if I didn’t graduate, I could not get my license so I went back to school. And then came my future wife, a very nice lady studying at the University of the East, who encouraged me to finish my studies. But I did not go back to Mapua because I knew I was better than some of the professors. I went to Far Eastern University, which was not really an architecture school. That was 1964-1965 and I was only 23. In 1970, I got married, took my oath as a naturalized Filipino, got my Philippine passport, and passed the architecture board."

The young couple, Gilbert and Augustina Yu, lost no time building their own family. Says the proud dad, "I have five very good kids, three girls and two boys, both of whom are working with me – one is building the building while the other is selling it."

Banking on a solid foundation, Daniel and Gibson Yu have put on the hard hat with the same indefatigable passion that drives their father to keep building houses.

"Housing should be a basic right of citizens," Gilbert Yu asserts. "People who go into housing must have the sincere desire to provide a home for the public and not to make land and housing more expensive."

You and I know that living at The Fort could cost an arm and a leg. Well, Gilbert knows better. He notes, "A condo at Fort Bonifacio easily costs P30M; mine is only P7 million for a three-bedroom house. You can even own a condo for only P700,000! The reason for the low prices is that we took out the developers. I have worked with developers and I know that what they want is what I don’t want."

Enter G&W Architects and its pioneering "build to own" method. Simply put, it means building your home at direct cost by doing away with the middleman developer and engaging the services of a construction industry professional team. Via the old method, homeowners buy from a middleman developer, who hires a group of construction industry professionals to build and sell it back to the buyers at 40 percent higher prices.

Yu gives more concrete details: "There’s a recruitment period of six months where I organize a homeowners association. I’m representing a group of clients, who appoint me as their attorney to sign for them the deed of sale with Ayala, which owns the land. This is exactly what they do in Singapore, which is one of my clients."

With the new method, each unit owner employs a depository and disbursement bank with strict instructions that all funds go directly to the project alone. With the old method, all payments are made to the middleman developer with no accountability of where the money goes. Often, the money is used to pay previous debts, to fund other unfinished projects, etc.

With the new method, payment deposited by the unit owner to the depository and disbursement bank will earn high-yielding interest for the homeowner before the construction starts. Via the old method, without any constuction expenditure for the first three years of pre-selling, the middleman developer collects payments from the units and takes all the profits generated from those funds.

There’s more. With the new build method, the two-year delivery time frame allows homeowners to immediately rent out or use their home, saving three years’ worth of rent paid to live elsewhere. With the old buy method, the homebuyers’ units will be delivered five to seven years from date of purchase because of the three-year delayed contract. Thus, homebuyers lose three years’ worth of rental income from the unit or incur rental expenditure to live elsewhere.

G&W has built four towers: Penhurst, Kensington, Hamptons 1 and 2. "We are talking to Ayala for our fifth project," says Yu, beaming with fulfillment. "Ang bilis! I guess that’s how it is if you have the right product."

Yu knows that the right condo product is one that’s only 20 to 25 stories high at the maximum. "I don’t build 30-storey buildings," says Yu. "I specialize in small units that offer comfort and quality of life. A 45- to 47-square-meter unit at P2.5M is the cheapest that can be delivered in two years at The Fort, but the quality is high. It’s got an entrance like a five-star hotel’s."

True enough, the units that G&W builds have all the amenities of modern-day living amid a well-planned environment. Every building has a swimming pool, 24-hour roving security, concierge, parking at the basement. Of course, even the smallest unit has a kitchen, but really now, who needs to cook when food delivery is just a call away and there are restaurants that have sprouted like, uh, mushroom at the Global City?

Indeed, this man has turned his lofty dream into another man’s dream home.

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For more information on G&W projects, visit www.gw-architects.com