Residential Property Prices Rose by 4.8% in 2nd Quarter of 2018

Residential real estate prices rose by 4.8 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2nd Quarter of 2018 as the Residential Real Estate Price Index (RREPI) increased to 117.2 from 111.8 for the same quarter a year ago. The prices of townhouses, condominium units, and single detached housing units grew YoY by 13.3 percent,  9.1 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, prices of duplex units (which account for only 0.36 percent of total new housing units reported) has declined by 4.4 percent YoY.  Quarter-on-quarter, the RREPI edged higher by 0.8 percent. The RREPI measures the average change in prices of various types of housing units comprising of single detached house, duplex, townhouse, and condominium unit based on data from housing loans granted by universal, commercial, and thrift banks.

The average residential property prices in both National Capital Region (NCR) and Areas Outside NCR (AONCR) has climbed by 5.1 percent and 4.1 percent compared to year-ago prices, respectively. In NCR, the growth in prices of condominium units and townhouses outweighed the decline in prices of single detached houses and duplexes. Meanwhile, all types of housing units in AONCR registered price increases.

For Q2 2018, about seven in ten (77.1 percent) residential real estate loans (RRELs) were for the acquisition of new housing units. By type of housing unit, 46.1 percent of residential property loans were for the purchase of condominium units, followed by single detached units (45.6 percent) and townhouses   (7.8 percent). By area, majority of the RRELs granted in the NCR were for the purchase of condominium units, while RRELs granted in AONCR were for single detached houses. By region, NCR accounted for  45.2 percent of the total number of RRELs granted during the quarter, followed by AONCR - CALABARZON (27.9 percent), Central Luzon (6.9 percent), Central Visayas (5.9 percent), Western Visayas (5 percent), Davao Region (3.5 percent) and Northern Mindanao (1.7 percent). Together, the NCR and the six other regions accounted for 96.1 percent of total housing loans granted by banks.