Residential developer says there is still unserved demand

A LOCAL residential developer is confident it could still grab a good market share despite the entry of national players building homes for the growing Cebuano market.

Prime Homes Development Corp. admin and office head Harold See said there is still a “huge” unserved demand for housing in Cebu.

See identified the booming industries of tourism and business process outsourcing (BPO) as well as continued inflow of remittances as among the factors that contributed to the growing demand in the housing sector.

See said they are building a residential project called Virtacci, a pocket-subdivision in partnership with the Gungob Industries Inc. in Lamac, Consolacion.

See said Prime Homes took over the project that was originally developed by Gungob Industries. The company is set to build 29 units composed of 2-storey duplexes and townhouses for an estimated investment of P100 million. Gungob already built 11 house units.

Virtacci is positioned as a mid- to high-end residential development with unit prices ranging from P1.7 million to P2.4 million.

According to Prime Homes general manager Rey Aguilar, they are targeting to finish 10 house units to be completed by December. The remaining 19 house units will be completed in July 2013.

Aguilar said their latest project is ideal for start-up families, young professionals and overseas Filipino workers.

Prime Homes is a new player in Cebu’s real estate industry. The booming housing sector prompted the company to invest in low-cost horizontal projects in 2009.

The company’s flagship project is Henaville, which is composed of 300 house units with half-a-billion investment in Estaca, Compostela. Following Henaville is the Alicia project in Barangay Tamiao in Compostela, which is projected to have 700 low-cost units.

The project, however, was temporarily suspended but the company hopes to revive the operation this year. The project cost for Alicia is estimated at P700 million to P800 million.