For property firm exec, the writing is on the wall

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Guillermo Choa’s office can be an unusual sight for some.

White boards are mounted on whole walls and desks, serving as canvas, and constantly filled with scribbles of new ideas, strategies and concepts for real estate firm Property Company of Friends Inc. (PRO-FRIENDS).

“My office and my house has a wall-to-wall white board because, if there’s one thing I like doing, it is to conceptualize, and to think about new things or improvements. I love writing and scribbling. In fact, even my office table has a white board so that when an idea comes to mind, I could take note of it right away,” the founder of PRO-FRIENDS tells the Inquirer.

Despite the success he has reaped over the years, Choa says he has never stopped learning and pushing himself to draw up new ideas on how to further improve the company, as he did when he first founded PRO-FRIENDS about 15 years ago. This, and the value of education, were things his mother taught him and his siblings early on, he explains.

Reared to become a successful entrepreneur, Choa recalls how, at a tender age of nine, he was already expected to help out in the family business.

“When we were young, our family was into retail hardware business. We had a store located in Pasay City, it was called Taft Avenue Lumber. It was a business started by my grandfather that was passed on to my father. Eventually, I, together with my siblings, became part of it,” Choa says.

“We were taught to sell, weigh and pack items such as nails. Growing up, we moved from manual labor to sales. I was in charge of finding clients to sell our products. In an entrepreneurship, there’s no such thing as you work for sales or delivery or production. Being an entrepreneur means that, when something has to be done, you need to do it,” he adds.

The family hardware store served as the perfect training ground for Choa to hone his skills. It was there where he learned the basics of the trade—from manual labor and sourcing of materials to selling products.

“We were not [forced to] be entrepreneurs, but we grew into it. Before, we would wake up early in the morning and that’s the first thing that we see. If a client comes in and needs to purchase some items, you should be able to prepare it yourself. Apart from this, you should know how to properly sell it,” Choa shares.

This early exposure to the business of selling construction materials paved the way for more opportunities, and has given him the chance to meet people who proved instrumental to his success.

Choa’s venture into real estate began when the family hardware store closed in 1975 because the owner of the lot they were leasing decided to redevelop it for higher value rental. His family was forced to moved to Parañaque where they opened another store.

“When we moved to Parañaque it was the start of the rise of mass housing developments, this was around late ’70s going into the ’80s. I was a teenager and already in charge of sales while studying in college. The routine then was that we studied half a day and the other half would be devoted to work. That was the norm. We were like working students in the context of a family business,” he relates.

Choa holds a degree in Bachelor of Science in Commerce major in Marketing from the De La Salle University. He also has a master’s degree in Business Economics from the University of Asia and the Pacific.

According to Choa, their first clients in their new hardware store then were the Aguirres of BF Homes, and then the Villars, who first started out as builders. Such exposure led the family to learn more about the real estate business, and for Choa to take on a different career—far from the profession he earlier wanted to be in.

“I wanted to teach after graduating. Building homes and becoming a developer was not a childhood dream. But I can say that I grew into it simply because of what I saw when we were still selling construction materials. When I started seeing our clients coming up with various models, I saw how each model actually affected people and how it improved the quality of life of the people,” Choa narrates.

Choa’s journey to becoming one of the most respected developer has started. When Choa’s first child was born in 1985, he realized that the family expenses had started to balloon and thus took that as a perfect signal to start his own business. In 1986, he built his first project, which was a single house development in Tierra Nueva, a property located across Ayala Alabang.

“When I ventured into property development, the hardware store was already about to close. The first venture was scary because I put everything that I have into it. However, the hardware served as a possible backup just in case things won’t work. The first house was built on a piece of land that our parents bought for us. I only had one partner and we went on joint venture for one house,” he says.

CHOA

The first property he developed was sold for P1.9 million to a retired Japanese man married to a Filipino. The supplies came from the family hardware store and the construction side was handled by Choa’s partner.

“The initial challenge was that, I really didn’t know how to build a house, so I was really reliant on my partner. But as we were doing this, I became more active than my partner. He was a previous client of our hardware business,” he relates.

It was in 1988 that Choa became more aggressive, having already built and sold two properties. He and his wife then built 35 townhouses at Tierra Nueva, a project he found to be easier than the previous developments as Choa already had the necessary knowledge and understanding of the real estate business. Choa then invited his brother to partner with him in a real estate firm they called Confed Properties.

“I didn’t have much capital then so I asked my brother to partner with me. Under Confed, we were able to create pretty sizeable developments in Cavite and Bulacan,” he explains.

“But then in 1998, we both realized that we had to create our own businesses so that each one of us will have that independence and chance to grow. So my brother took over Confed and I put up PRO-FRIENDS. So it was back again to square one when I started PRO-FRIENDS. I had to start from scratch, but I said to myself that I have nothing to be scared of. You see, I grew into a life of starting businesses and growing them.”

The first project of PRO-FRIENDS was Primarosa in Cavite. From there, the company has grown by leaps and bounds to become one of the leading and fastest real estate developers in the country to date. Known mostly for their property developments in Cavite and Iloilo, PRO-FRIENDS is the developer behind the Lancaster Estates and Carmona Estates. It currently has 36 ongoing projects and 52 completed and successful communities.

“At PRO-FRIENDS we always strive to remain attuned with the needs of the market. We have in our hands the responsibility of being able to develop something that would actually enhance the quality of life of the people we commit to serve,” Choa says.

Choa is a past president of the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA) and is a former director of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association (Creba), two of the largest organizations of housing developers in the country today. He earned the distinction of being one of the 10 finalists for the prestigious Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005 and was named “2006 Leading Developer for Economic Housing in Region 4A” by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board last May 2007.