Cebu Landmasters keeps top spot in VisMin residential property market

Soberano family-led Cebu Landmasters Inc. (CLI) topped anew the residential property development business in Visayas and Mindanao (VisMin) in 2020, keeping its market leadership for the second straight year.

This was based on a recent study by Santos Knight Frank (SKF), which noted that Cebu’s homegrown property developer had the largest market share among real estate firms providing condominium projects and subdivisions outside Luzon.

CLI accounted for 18,683 units, or 12 percent, of the available 86,126 units in VisMin, pulling ahead of developers operating nationwide, based on SKF’s third quarter 2020 data. The closest rivals were Sta. Lucia Realty and Development and Camella Homes, at 11,897 units and 11,768 units, respectively.

Apart from having the largest inventory, CLI topped residential sales in VisMin during the period, with an absorption rate of 83 percent and a sales takeup of 210 units a month.

CLI posted record reservation sales of P14.25 billion in 2020, accounting for 5,300 units sold across key cities in VisMin. Despite the lingering pandemic, CLI’s sales takeup level grew by 12.4 percent last year compared to 2019.

“The high sales velocity of our projects even at the height of the lockdowns in key cities verify a deeply felt need especially among VisMin economic and mid-income earners to own their own homes. We intend to continue fulfilling this need in 2021 with 8,000 more units in 15 residential projects in Cebu, Ormoc, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and Davao,” Franco Soberano, executive vice president and chief operating officer of CLI, said in a press statement on Monday.

“The year 2020 opened our eyes further to how high the demand truly is for quality housing in VisMin, and we hope to build on our growth momentum to satisfy this great need,” he added.

A separate market study by Leechiu Property Consultants estimated that the VisMin housing backlog would hit 2.85 million houses by 2022, with an average annual demand of 475,000 new housing units. Of this number, 200,000 mid- and economic housing units are needed per year.

However, only a handful of the top 10 VisMin developers in 2020 are seen to maximize opportunities provided by the mid- and economic income segments in the coming years. INQ