Vista Land Takes Advantage of Increased Preference for House and Lot Products
Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. (PSE: VLL), one of the country’s leading integrated property developers and the largest homebuilder, continues to capitalize on the increased preference of customers for house and lot products especially those that are in the provincial areas. Homebuyers and investors alike now put a premium for safety, thus looking for homes with adequate space and within an integrated community amid this pandemic. In addition, the Company sees an increased preference for properties in the provincial areas.
This shift of customer preference bodes well for the Company since Vista Land has always been the leader in horizontal housing and has since positioned its housing products very well across the country through its unparalleled geographical presence in 147 cities and municipalities in 49 provinces nationwide. In fact, the Company in the last five years generated 50% of revenues from areas outside Mega Manila.
Manuel B. Villar Jr., Vista Land Chairman stated, “This pandemic has impacted our performance for the first half of 2020 and we still expect the rest of the year to be challenging. However, we are happy to see encouraging signs for both our residential and leasing businesses. For our residential business, we are glad to have always been able to cater to the changing needs and preferences of our homebuyers, and to stay true to our core goal of building homes for every Filipino, most especially during these trying times. We have witnessed that shift of customer preference to house and lot products in the provincial areas as evidenced by the increase in proportionate sales coming from our housing products outside Mega Manila compared to the same period last year. As to our leasing business, our operational GFA has increased from 20% during ECQ to 79% at present. The 21% that remain closed are those tenants that are still not allowed to operate as per government mandated restrictions.”
The Company has only launched two residential projects with value of about P2.0 billion during the first half of the year but is looking at launching more by the second half especially if the upward trend in sales will continue.
“Our June sales are already at 70% of pre-COVID level with July and August sales tracking better than June. Thus, if this sales trajectory continues, we might decide to launch more projects in the fourth quarter. We do not need to acquire new land anyway as we have an existing land bank of about 3,000 hectares. We are also happy that because of the synergy between our residential and leasing businesses, our malls are still enjoying a decent foot traffic since most of our commercial properties are within our existing residential community,” said Manuel Paolo A. Villar, Vista Land President & CEO. “This pandemic may have upended the real estate industry and the economy in general yet a lot of opportunities are still there especially in our sector. Right now, we are making the necessary adjustments to our business operations in order to better position the company once the economy fully recovers. Meantime, we continue to provide the Vista Land standard of living to our residents through our integrated property developments across the country.”
