Robinsons Place Tacloban (Photo by Robinsons Land Corp.)
MANILA – The property sector finds a “silver lining” amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, seeing development opportunities outside Metro Manila with the government’s ‘Balik Probinsya’ program.
In a virtual briefing Tuesday, KMC Savills Managing Director Michael McCullough said the current work-from-home arrangement adopted by many companies to curb Covid-19 outbreak will attract property developers to build their projects near their employees.
Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go proposed the ‘Balik Probinsya’ program to decongest the National Capital Region (NCR) as post-Covid-19 response of the government.
McCullough added the program will also help in slowing down urbanization in Metro Manila and create more livable cities in the provinces.
“We are seeing a lot of clients scrabble for decentralized locations. Many of our call center clients have contacted us saying, ‘we need locations closer to our agents’,” he said.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, McCullough added leasing activity is expected to slow down while vacancy rate in office space is projected to increase in NCR.
He said developers in Metro Manila only delivered new office space supply of 36,500 square meters during this quarter due to construction delays.
For this year, new office supply in Metro Manila central business districts is forecasted to reach nearly 300,000 square meters, a slump from over 700,000 square meters new supply in office spaces in 2019. (PNA)
