CHANGES in consumer demand are often anchored on a country’s economics. This is particularly true in the real-estate sector where shifts in property market preferences often reflect the state of a nation’s collective purchasing power.
It has actually come to a point where a much larger number of people in the Philippines can now afford to buy real estate due to the increasingly favorable economic situation.
As the country’s middle class continues to thrive and expand, it brings with it new preferences and new product demands that emanate not only from their enhanced ability to purchase but also from their need to ensure that their purchase will give the most returns.
The expanding middle class
The new middle class was largely born out of the local business-process outsourcing (BPO) boom which lifted many individuals from unemployment, the preponderance of lucrative home-based teaching jobs, the advent of the uncollared work force, and the ubiquity of the Internet and mobile technology which gave young people entirely new skill sets. The growth of this particular socioeconomic class has, in turn, given rise to a new set of needs and wants, especially in the real-estate market.
While individual millennial prefer smaller and more compact living spaces wherever these may be, new middle-class families prefer a more integrated package where most everything can be had in one go. Newly established families often take a more pragmatic approach to real-estate purchase, carefully considering all factors involved before eventually deciding on what to invest their hard-earned money on. And this is precisely why integrated townships have become highly popular in recent time.
The merits of the integrated township
A township is what property developers call a particular kind of master planned, self-contained mixed-use development where residents are given access to facilities not only for living, but for working and playing, as well. In townships, residential units are developed among corporate offices, retail shops, leisure establishments, and sometimes even schools.
What makes the township’s value proposition so appealing is the obvious fact that it offers convenience not usually found in traditional gated subdivisions and stand-alone high-rise condominiums.
Another proof why townships have become highly sought-after is the fact that local real-estate companies, like Megaworld, SMDC, Century Properties, Robinsons Land, and Ayala Land have been developing townships left and right, even in areas outside of Metro Manila.
Real-estate giant Megaworld Corp., for instance, has already developed around 15 large townships since its inception. The company is the developer of the iconic Eastwood City, considered the very first and most successful integrated township in the country and which, many believe, has become the model on which many later townships were based.
Eastwood City is an 18-hectare megacommunity and offers complete facilities, amenities and establishments for living, working, playing, and shopping. It is also considered as the Philippines’s very first cyberpark. To have an idea of what may be found in a township, consider these: Eastwood City has 19 completed luxury condominium towers, 10 first-class corporate office buildings, several ongoing residential projects, 500 commercial and retail shops, three malls and a modern information-technology park. This township is also home to more than 22,000 residents and 55,000 workers to date, and the numbers are still growing.
The corporate office and retail components
It is also a fact that companies and retail establishments prefer to set up shop in townships for several reasons. For one thing, a township-based corporate office would give the impression of accessibility and would make attracting quality personnel a lot easier.
There is also a kind of prestige attached to being based within a newly developed integrated township and this is beneficial to companies like BPOs and contact centers who are looking to recruit many young employees.
For retail establishments, on the other hand, a township always offers a captive market.
The new norm in property development
The simple truth is that integrated townships have already set the standard for property development. More than this, however, townships may also be the solution to the growing problem of Metropolitan congestion.
For one thing, townships developed in key provincial cities can spur the growth of the local economy by bringing business activity to the countryside, thus, creating a more dynamic business environment and, of course, more employment opportunities for locals. Moreover, the presence of townships in key cities in the province will also help prevent the migration of provincial graduates to Metro Manila.
The good news is that many local property developers have begun developing integrated townships in key provincial areas like Davao, Bulacan, Pampanga, Cebu and Iloilo. Although the economic benefits of these provincial townships are yet to be felt, pending the projects’ completion, we can already look forward to a more dynamic and less centralized economic landscape in the years to come. It’s really just a matter of time.