Dumaguete Homes for Sale

A Real Estate Market Update for 2017

So what is available in terms of Dumaguete Homes for sale this year? With the explosive boom of both Filipinos and foreigners looking to relocate to “The City of Gentle People”, the real estate market in Negros Oriental has been changing rapidly. What was easy to find, and was affordable 2 short years ago, now poses a challenge for potential buyers on the property hunt.

The first segment I want to look at is what can be termed “low cost affordable”. This refers to houses and lots in the under 2,500,000 php mark and typically is filled by large Filipno developers with tract type housing. In past years, Camella homes was the major player in the Dumaguete area, with some competition for Aldea homes, however many other National developers have set their sights on what they feel is a large growth market here. Among others, Filininvest and and Cebu based Primary Homes have purchased large suburban tracts and have large developments planned for  single family, detached, semi-detached and townhouse type units. The products being offered are small and cheaply built, however are very popular with locals due to their ease of aquisition through prepared financing options. If you are a foreigner though, these probably are not for you. Alternatively to the big large scale tract developments, occasionally small single family residences with a little more land will come on the markup, but are snapped up quickly.

The second segment is what I would call reasonably priced homes that are “foreigner friendly” , in the 2.5 million to 5 million php price range. When I say “foreigner friendly”, I am referring to the functionality of design, and both interior space, that would make it attractive to people for North America or Europe. To be blunt, there is a huge gap in the Dumaguete homes for sale market in this segment. I actually stumbled upon a discussion blog on the Dumaguete Info site this week, where numerous people were ruing about this exact situation. Typically , large developers have no interest in building to this market because it is not a market they can relate to, and it is not a volume type market where economics of scale are easily applied. Some small scale semi-professional types have made a half-hearted attempt to capture the “foreigner friendly” type home market , however either they have not done proper market research to understand that the “sweet spot” pricing threshold is under 5 million, or have been unable to efficiently deliver their product to this market. Consequently, you will see newly built homes spec homes come on the market 1 or 2 million higher. In terms of existing Dumaguete homes for sale under 5 mil, there just is nothing that is attractive on the market, simply because though the demand is there, no new stock is coming on line. Any existing “good” house that comes on the market seems to get immediately snapped up.

The Third segment is house and lot packages between 5 and 10 million pesos. Here there are numerous good options to choose from, however quite often they are overpriced. As an example, you will see a 120- 130 square meter house on a 400-500 sqm lot for 7-8 million. When comparing this to costs to purchase the land of 700-800 k, then add on construction costs of 4,000,000 (including site development), a buyer is not getting good value for his or her money.

The last segment is the 10 million +, which is most often a custom type home. There is a glut of these in the Dumaguete homes for sale market and most houses simply do not sell. There is such wide variants in terms of lot size, location and house design, each house has to be looked at individually to determine if the asking price is reasonable, but usually the case is that they are not. Typically these house were built to one person’s specific tastes and more often than not, there was little thought in design and budgeting to what could be achieved in a resale. Most often, a seller will base his asking price on how much he has spent on the property, plus a little tiny profit. the problem with this thinking is that the the specific tast that he has built for, are usually not highly attractive to a large segment of the buying population, so the potential market is extremely small. Worse, when the odd buyer does come along that likes the style, layout and location, when they look at the price, they determine they could have a new build done EXACTLY to their specification for 30-50% less. The end result is that these properties sit stagnating on the market for years.

With the changing landscape of Dumaguete City amidst its surging popularity, the market conditions are different. We here at PhilX have recognized these changing needs and the gaps in the market and through our affiliate Dumaguete PhilX Condev, are starting to design some small projects that will address the needs of the amrket that are not being met. Stayed tuned for future updates either here or on on Construction/Development website for some exciting options we will be presenting in the 2.5 to 5 million price range segment.