November 02, 2006
Updated 10:50:49 (Mla time)
A FILIPINO-AMERICAN senior real estate specialist based in California urged the Philippines to cash in on the world’s trillion-dollar, second-home market.
In an e-mail to INQ7.net, Susan Barlin, chief executive officer of the Barlin International Group, said the world’s top 12 choices for second homes are Panama, France, Malta, Mexico, Romania, Italy, Nicaragua, Uruguay, New Zealand, Belize, Spain, and Chile.
“But that’s because the second-home market hasn’t seen or heard much about the Philippines, which ought to be on top of that list. Ours is a beautiful country with very affordable real estate, competitive labor costs, lower cost of living, and nice tropical climate, where the icy world can run to during cold winter and where everybody speaks English,” she said.
Barlin said the government should prioritize the target market to include those who already travel to the tropics, particularly the Philippines. She said marketing must focus on the developed and cold countries with low birth rates, high divorce rates, whose family ties are not so closely knitted, and whose citizens are in the low- to middle-income level.
She also cautioned against using the words “retirement” or “retirees” in the campaign. She said that instead of marketing the Philippines as a “retirement haven,” it should be promoted as a place where people can buy second homes.
“Most of these people don’t even want to be called seniors, much less retirees, but they are the ones who can afford and are strongly inclined to buy second homes outside their countries,” she added.
Barlin, who is also president liaison of the US National Association of Realtors (NAR) to the Philippines, said the real estate industry is globalizing and this could provide the Philippines its much-needed foreign investments.
“The world’s cross-border direct commercial real estate investment alone jumped by 21 percent to $475 billion in 2005 and is still rising,” she said.
With 1.3 million members in 55 countries, NAR is a member of the International Confederation of Real Estate Associations (ICREA), an alliance of 24 international realtor associations worldwide.
She cited a PriceWaterHouse Coopers study highlighting the increase in net flows of cross-border investment in real estate at an annual market growth rate of 23 percent.
“In the US alone, many are buying second homes. In fact, four million Americans live abroad. Over 1/3 of residential sales in the US are second homes, and 13,000 retire every day,” she pointed out.
This global market consists of 45 million in the US, 20 million in Europe, 3.8 million in Canada, 15 million in Asia, and three million Filipino-Americans, 300,000 of whom are baby boomers born in 1946 to 1964, Barlin said.
“Even if it’s true that our overseas Filipinos worldwide (OFWs) and Filipino immigrants make a fairly big market, it is just a drop in the bucket. There is a much bigger market out there waiting to be tapped. We just have to market the Philippines correctly and effectively depending on each market’s cultural nuances and preferences,” she stressed.
Barlin will be in the country on December 14 to 16 for “Roadshow sa Manila” at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel and again next year from December 6 to 10 for the “Asian International Real Estate Expo and Conference” (AIREEC) at the Philippine International Convention Center.
The “Roadshow sa Manila” will feature properties in Baguio, Batangas, Bacolod, Bicol, Cebu, Zamboanga, and the rest of the archipelago, while AIREEC will showcase the Philippines and other parts of the world to the global real estate market, including NAR’s members in 55 countries worldwide.
http://services.inq7.net/express/06/11/02/html_output/xmlhtml/20061102-30125-xml.html
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