Investing wisely

How many homebuyers have fallen prey to false or even empty promises from property developers?

Fooled by glossy brochures of model units and architect’s rendition of the project, these hapless victims invest their life’s savings into projects which either will serve as their homes or as their investments only to discover later that what they bought are lemons.

Substandard construction materials, hidden defects, erratic water supply, leaking roofs, lousy after sales service, undelivered amenities, bad neighborhood, unreliable transport availability – these are just some of the problems faced by buyers and discovered only after unit turnover.  That is the problem with pre-selling or when buyers pay for property that has yet to be built.

With buyers facing so many choices and options, they should be more discerning and look for a developer with a good track record and one that delivers on its promise.

One company that makes sure it only delivers homes that families can truly be proud of is Property Company of Friends or Pro-Friends.

Take its Lancaster New City in Cavite project as an example. Located in an area straddling Imus, Kawit and Gen. Trias, Lancaster covers a total land area of 1,107 hectares and is the company’s biggest development, envisioned to evolve into a vibrant and self-sustaining township.

Lancaster has sold more than 14,800 units since 2007. The project makes for a good work-life balance, being very accessible to schools, churches, hospitals, malls, and to one’s place of work. The project is only 14 kilometers from the metro.

St. Edward Integrated School (SEIS), a school established inside Lancaster New City in 2012, gives families the option to send their children to a school that prides in raising globally competitive students who have strong sense of characters.
Also inside Lancaster New City is the pioneer IT Park of Cavite, SuntechiPark. Lancaster New City is also developing its transport system that would easily bring the residents from their place of work to their homes in less time.

Meanwhile, Lancaster New City will be building Downtown Lancaster, a 25-hectare commercial-business-lifestyle district that will provide retail and leisure activities to both office workers and residents. Within Downtown Lancaster will be the Square, a sprawling commercial center that houses several commercial and retail establishments. In 2013, The Square already opened its first commercial building and houses a selection of restaurants, wellness boutiques, and other service centers.

Look who’s talking

With around six months remaining for the Aquino administration, it has a very small but distinct window of opportunity to leave a lasting legacy and that is make its flagship program – the public-private partnership (PPP) program – work.

The President himself should give the program the necessary push. He can for instance ask why major PPP projects like the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road project of Metro Pacific, which will definitely help solve Metro Manila’s traffic woes, have not taken off the ground.

Sure, world leaders were spared the traffic jams, but that was all for show. A huge number of our government officials would have been excommunicated had this show (rounding up street children, making people walk for miles due to lack of transport, closing streets, demolishing structures along so-called Mabuhay Lanes) been staged for the Pope. 

On the sidelines of last week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Chief Executive Officers (CEO) Summit here, AirAsia CEO Anthony Fernandes told the media that inadequate infrastructure, particularly in the aviation or transport sector, has barred the Philippines from realizing its full potentials as the shining light of tourism in Asia. Tony Fernandes is wondering why we only have two million tourists, which he said is ridiculous considering what this country can offer.

Some investors have given up. Megawide  ?World Citi Consortium, Inc. ?(MWCCI) announced the cancellation of its P8.69-billion PPP contract for the Philippine Orthopedic Center due to the failure of the Department of Health (DOH) for two years now to release the Certificate of Possession that would allow Megawide to build the 700-bed specialty hospital at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) compound in Quezon City.

 American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) senior adviser John Forbes said that the repeated review of projects by successive secretaries and administrations creates policy inconsistency, and Megawide’s unilateral decision to give up the POC project could undermine other PPP projects in process when the next administration takes over.

Take the case of the Connector Road project. Despite its obvious benefits to the public and the economy in general, government does not seem to have this sense of urgency to put this project on the ground immediately.

Just when everyone thought that everything is finally set for a Swiss Challenge (the only remaining obstacle is the approval by the Investment Coordinating Council and then the NEDA Board of the conduct of the Challenge), here comes the Department of Finance belatedly questioning the projected rate of return. While previous approvals of the NEDA Board based the returns on weighted average cost of capital or WACC, the finance department says the computation should be based on PIRR or project internal rate of return. DOF could have raised this issue year’s back. Why only now?

And DOF had the nerve to question why the Philippines’ global competitiveness ranking dropped to number 103 from last year’s 97 in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business Report. The DOF cited glaring flaws and inconsistencies in the survey and told the WB that this damaged investor perception about the Philippines.

The Connector Road project of the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) Group is a P16-billion to P17-billion toll road linking NLEX and SLEX that promises to cut travel time between these two to just 15-20 minutes.

According to Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) president Rodrigo Franco, they could still complete the project by 2019 or 2020 if it gets the greenlight before end-December. But this already seems to be a tall order. Officials say that assuming the NEDA Board does approve the Swiss challenge this quarter, it would take around 90 days to finish the conduct of the challenge. Thus, the earliest that the project can be awarded is early 2016.

But MNTC executives are still hoping that the NEDA Board, chaired by President Aquino, would be able to take up and approve the revised terms of this NLEX-SLEX Connector Road in its next meeting.

 The NLEX-SLEX Connector Road is projected to improve transport logistics as a result of the more efficient movement of cargoes, roll-on, roll-off (Roro) vessels, and passengers in and out of the ports located in Manila. It will ease port congestion because with the reduced travel time, it will encourage businesses to take their cargoes to the alternative ports in Batangas and the Subic Freeport. Also, linkages between the key growth areas of Metro Manila, Central Luzon, North Luzon and the Clark-Subic corridor would improve, attracting investors in the process.

According to studies, the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road would decongest EDSA, C-5 and other roads in Metro Manila’s inner cities because these choked arteries would be freed of heavy vehicles traveling to and from Manila’s Port Area. 

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