Number of housing units down in 2011

MANILA, Philippines—New housing projects reached 172,074 units in 2011, 3 percent lower than the record high of 178,226 units built in 2010, according to the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association, Inc. (SHDA).

SHDA president Paul Tanchi presented the data in a recent joint briefing with National Statistics Office (NSO) Administrator Carmelita Ericta.

Tanchi also launched the statistical data series representing housing starts from 2000 to 2011.

Tanchi said SHDA derived its estimates on housing starts from NSO’s buildings data, which measure private construction projects per year, according to the number of building permits recorded by the government.

Tanchi also said the industry group set the average sizes for duplex and quadruplex housing at 60 square meters; for apartments and accessoria, which include raw houses and townhouses, 40 sqm; and for condominiums, 30 sqm, of which 65 percent are “saleable” since the floor area for such buildings includes features such as stairwells, hallways and garbage chutes.

SHDA board advisor Joe de Guzman said that housing starts (estimate of the number of new construction based on building permits issued) is a good indicator of economic performance.

In terms of total floor area, there was a reduction of about 2.1 percent to 5.416 million sqm in new building construction in 2011 from 5.53 million sqm in 2010.

Residential construction rose 3.1 percent to 21,424 projects from 20,784 while nonresidential construction jumped 16.9 percent to 4,085 projects from 3,495.

Combined approved building permits for additions, alterations and repairs of existing structures reached 4,076.

NSO said this reflected a 0.2 percent increase from 4,068 in 2010.—Riza T. Olchondra