DAVAO CITY—A group of housing developers is keen on finding out how workers and agents in the business-process outsourcing (BPO) sector could become bankable in terms of the housing uptake.
Sol Lagmay, a member of the board of directors of the regional chapter of the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association, said the group was conducting a study of how the sector could include the BPO workers among its clients “considering the lack of permanent work and security of tenure in that industry.”
The call-center agents and the rest of the BPO personnel and workers “have the financial capacity but the nature of their work, which jumps from one company to another, and one BPO job to another, is a risk also to the housing sector,” Lagmay said, referring to amortizing units, which could last for 30 years.
Being among the sectors whose personnel are awash with money, Lagmay said, “it should also be worthwhile for them to benefit from the housing opportunity.”
“One thing, however, is that these BPO workers, have spending priorities other than getting housing units this early phase of their working years,” she said. “Mostly millennials [those in the 16 to 29 years old bracket], they spend their money on gadgets.”
Aside from the propensity to jump from one BPO company to another, Lagmay said workers also transfer from one province or city to another, where there are better opportunities.
“It’s one study we are doing for them [BPO workers], to find out how they may also benefit from all these housing projects for Filipinos who need them,” she added.
Pag-IBIG Fund CEO Acmad Rizaldy P. Moti said he sees a future wherein workers would be highly mobile so that “we may have to consider that people may prefer to rent than get housing units in fixed communities.”
Moti said the public housing sector could consider constructing condominiums and tenements to suit the highly mobile nature of some occupations.
Lagmay agreed and said housing developers may also consider “offering them rent-to-own units,” where the BPO workers may still continue paying the units they took out from the developers “even if they work far from these housing units.”