Lamudi Philippines research details results of survey conducted in 2015

An overwhelming majority of Filipinos are planning to move house of apartment in the near future, and almost 80 percent of them said that their main reason for moving is that they are planning to buy their first home.

This is according to a research conducted by global property website Lamudi Philippines detailed in its research report published recently.

Other reasons for moving house or apartment cited by the survey’s participants include area preference (either looking for a better area, planning to move to another city, or planning to live close to relatives) (14.66 percent), work-related relocation (2.4 percent), and proximity to schools (1.44 percent).

In terms of property type, an overwhelming majority of the respondents said that they are looking for a house (94.86 percent), and only a small proportion are considering to buy a condo (2.42 percent) or a townhouse (1.21 percent).

In terms of location, more than half (55.05 percent) of the respondents cited Metro Manila as their preferred area for their property purchase, with Quezon City being the most preferred city (19.47 percent), followed by Makati (8.65 percent) and Manila (8.41 percent). Cebu Province is the next most cited large area after Metro Manila. Almost 7 percent of the respondents said that they are planning to buy a property in Cebu. The province is followed by Cavite at 6.73 percent.

Lamudi’s survey also found that Filipino homebuyers are fast becoming Internet savvy. Almost 80 percent of the surveyed participants cited the Internet as their starting point when researching about real estate. These survey participants cited real estate websites (such as online listings platforms), social media sites, and search engines as their usual starting point when researching about properties in the Internet.

Lamudi’s customer survey was conducted in mid-2015. The survey revealed that 33.89 percent of the respondents were aged 50 years and older, followed by the age groups 31–40 years (28.13 percent), 41–50 years (21.15 percent), 21–30 years (16.11 percent), and under 20 years (0.72 percent).

There are slightly more female respondents (54 percent) than male, which is consistent with Lamudi Philippines’ onsite data that shows that more women search for properties online than men.

In this report, Michael Mabutol, President and Managing Director of Pinnacle Real Estate Consulting Services Inc. gave us his viewpoint concerning the Philippines' real estate market challenges in 2015.