The need for more student accommodation in the Philippines presents an opportunity for Qataris and other expatriates to diversify their investments in the country’s growing real estate market, a business expert has said.
Philippine Business Council Qatar (PBC-Q) chairman Greg Loayon said Qatari investors, including other expatriates, are inclined to purchase beach or island properties in some of the Philippines’ tourist destinations. Other investments, he said, include residential and commercial condominium developments.
But the burgeoning student population of top universities in the Philippine capital of Manila, according to Loayon, “is also another market Qataris and other expatriate investors can tap into.”
“Student accommodation is what I would actually offer. In terms of rentability, it is easy to find a tenant because demand in this area is very high, particularly for Filipino parents who are working abroad,” Loayon told Gulf Times yesterday.
“When parents send their children back to the Philippines to study in university, they will either buy a property for them or look for student accommodations that are close to the schools, and this is where a lot of foreign owners can benefit from.
“People are already doing that in Asia and we’ve seen that happen with a lot of investors from Singapore, Hong Kong, and China but the Middle East is slowly waking up to owning properties in the Philippines,” Loayon explained.
Aside from Filipinos, Loayon said there is a significant population of foreign students taking up medical and similar other courses in top Philippine universities such as Ateneo de Manila University, University of the Philippines, and De La Salle University.
“If you’re look at the many condominiums in the Philippines, there are so many units that are being put up around the major universities that are offering quality education in the fields of medicine, dentistry, or engineering, among others.
“These condominiums are packed in a short period. The experience is that within the first three months, these units are already occupied, giving investors immediate return of investments,” Loayon said.
Citing a group of Singaporean investors, Loayon said the group has been buying several floors of condominiums in the Philippines and are renting them out to students.
Loayon emphasised that the Philippine real estate market “is resilient, where we’re averaging a 12% property growth per year.”
“That’s why there are other nationals from other parts of Asia such as Singapore and Malaysia who are investing in real estate in the Philippines because the market in their own countries is already heated.
“From a real estate perspective in Qatar, investors here should also look at investing on retirement or resort and residential-condominium properties, including student accommodation in the Philippines as opposed to looking only at Europe,” he pointed out.
Loayon said Qataris and other expatriates in Qatar could benefit from the low cost of living in the Philippines, adding that government agencies like the Philippine Retirement Authority are offering foreign investors various incentives and benefits to boost the country’s reputation as a retirement haven.