A NEW player in property development is commited to concentrate its future projects to economic housing in three to four years, pouring in roughly P1 billion in investments in Cebu.
One Citadel Homes and Residences, sister company of Worldwide Central Properties Inc., reported that it launch two economic housing projects, one in Lapu Lapu City and one in Mandaue City, within the third quarter.
“We created a separate one (company) for our economic housing projects, the One Citadel Homes and Residences, because we’ve observed a housing backlog in Cebu these days,” said vice president for marketing Sharon Anne Ong. She said that although there are numerous residential projects today, there remains to be a big number of those who do not have their own homes.
The economic housing project in Mandue, however, will be a condominium, different from the usual economic housing formats which are mostly horizontal developments. The price, according to the company’s president Alan Kent Ong, will follow the same rates for economic housing at P1.25 million, as classified by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board.
The Mandaue project will have a thousand units nestled in five or six towers. Sharon said they are planning to incorporate retail centers within the development.
The project in Barangay Agus in Lapu-Lapu City will be a house and lot package, still following the same price points. Officials said they will construct 300 houses for a budget of P300 million.
According to president Kent Ong, being in the business of manufacturing construction materials, allows them to minimize the cost of their developments. The company is underthe Worldwide Group of Companies, which include the Worlwide Steel Group and Wordlwide Home Depot.
“The savings that we will get will be passed on to the consumers,” said Kent.
In the next five years, officials said both Worldwide Central Properties and One Citadel will be launching eight projects. Specifics of the projects, however, were not mentioned, but these will be scattered within Metro Cebu.
“It depends. If we will develop outside the cities, it will be house and lot. But if it’s in the city, we will opt to develop condominiums,” he said.
Currently, Worldwide Central Properties is working on its maiden flagship project, the Sundance Residences in Banawa.
Launched in 2013, the project’s first tower will top off in the third quarter of this year and turned over in the first quarter of 2016. The other tower will be launched within the year. Sharon said the 289 units in the first tower are nearly sold out.
Officials said around 60 percent of buyers consist of local end-users, signifying the openess of the market to condominium living.