No lots for sale at ‘Meteor Gardens’

With the real estate market in a slump, scam artists are now trying to dupe people into buying lots in the non-existent "Meteor Gardens."

Housing Secretary Michael Defensor warned the public yesterday against buying into the Marvelous Eco-Townhomes and Residences, which like its catchy acronym Meteor Gardens, is purely fictional.

The phantom village is a "concoction of a squatting syndicate operating in Metro Manila and Southern Tagalog," Defensor, chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Council said.

"A group of landgrabbers is riding on the popularity of the Taiwan-made television soap to dupe the public," he said.

Defensor said a flyer announcing the sale of lots in Meteor Gardens was given to HUDCC by a housewife from Bacoor, Cavite, who said she got it from people distributing the flyers in front of the Baclaran Church in Parañaque City.

The one-half bond paper-sized flyer encourages "OFWs and SSS members" to buy lots at Meteor Gardens in Taguig, Fairview (Quezon City) and Bacoor, Cavite.

"For the price of a cellphone, you can start owning a housing lot. P5,000 lang!" the sales pitch read, without saying if among the prospective neighbors would be the stars of the popular chinovela.

Mobile phone number (0917)-932-3379 was the contact number given on the flyer, but which apparently had been disconnected when Defensor’s men tried to reach it.

A check made by Defensor’s staff with the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board revealed that no permit to sell was ever issued to Meteor Gardens.

The HUDCC-led National Task Force Against Professional Squatting has referred the case of the ghost village to the police.

But this early, Defensor is pointing to squatting syndicates "as behind the scam."

Defensor is warning lot buyers to "deal only with licensed real estate brokers and not to part with their money until they have checked and verified the documents and seen the property."

Many real property firms in the country are owned by Chinese-Filipinos and their development projects are usually referred to as "gardens." A number of them operate on the pre-selling system.