Real estate loans hit P1.15T

Growth in real estate loans rose by nearly quarter at the end of September last year, fueled by sustained demand for new homes and office space, data from regulators showed.

This came despite recent curbs on lending aimed at cooling the country’s real estate sector amid fears of a formation of an asset price bubble that, if burst, could weigh the rest of the economy down.

Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed that banks’ funding for real estate reached a record high P1.15 trillion, or the equivalent of 21.29 percent of the sector’s total loan portfolio. The banking sector’s exposure was higher than the 21.06 percent recorded in June.

Exposure to real estate, which includes both loans and investments in real estate firms’ debt and equity securities, was up 23.3 percent at the end of September. Growth in loans outpaced the expansion in the industry’s total loan portfolio of 19 percent at the end of September. Paolo G. Montecillo