From Manhattan’s empty towers to Mactan’s half-sold ones, the logic that turns shelter into a speculative instrument produces the same anxiety and the same winners
Housing as an Asset Class: What a Condo Slump in Cebu Tells Us About Homes Everywhere
From Manhattan’s empty towers to Mactan’s half-sold ones, the logic that turns shelter into a speculative instrument produces the same anxiety and the same winners
NEW YORK – In July, the property consultancy Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot, as the Manila Bulletin reported. In the same weeks, brokers in Cebu were telling reporters that condominium sales had slowed because buyers, many of them foreign retirees, had grown nervous. The two facts are not in conflict. They describe a market that is both attractive to investors and sensitive to mood.
For a newspaper of the left, that combination is the story. When homes are traded as financial assets, their price depends less on their use value, the roof and warmth they provide, than on expectations about other buyers. A headline can move it. So can a rumour.
The Legal Frame
The rules for foreign buyers in the Philippines are strict. Under Republic Act 4726, the Condominium Act, foreigners may own condominium units but not the land beneath them, and foreign ownership in a project is capped at 40 percent. Retirees can also apply for residence through the Philippine Retirement Authority. These limits are an attempt, familiar from many countries, to keep land in national hands while allowing some foreign capital into housing.
New York has its own version of the problem. The luxury towers of Midtown are in large part second homes, held by owners who are rarely in the city. As 6sqft reports, a new state tax on luxury second homes took effect on July 1. It treats the absentee owner of a $5 million apartment as a legitimate subject of taxation, which is a recognition that a city’s homes are not simply a place to park wealth.
The Psychology of the Market
The anxiety in Cebu has a name in the psychological literature. In their 1973 paper on the availability heuristic, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman showed that people judge the likelihood of events by how readily examples come to mind. A single vivid story can outweigh a ledger of figures. In a market where decisions are made on mood, a vivid story is a form of power.
The comic press has understood this. Its dispatches from Cebu, Mactan and Ohio, among them Manila News on the condominium slump, the London Prat on references demanded of British pensioners (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney on a realtor’s two-hour showings, treat the whole business as a comedy of manners, and they are funny because they are close to the truth: when buying a home becomes a test of whether you will be a good neighbour to people you have never met, the market has become a social filter as well as an economic one.
A Serious Note on the Wider Story
Press reports have also linked the Cebu property market to an investigation. Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, according to GMA News and the Guardian. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Child protection is serious business. We mention the matter only because it has been cited in discussions of buyer sentiment, and we draw no conclusion about any individual.
What Housing Is For
The Mamdani Post’s argument is not that foreigners should be barred or that investors are villains. It is that a society which allows housing to be treated chiefly as an investment will keep producing the same outcomes: speculation in good times, panic in bad, and in both a population of people who simply need somewhere to live and are left to the mercy of the cycle.
The alternative is to treat housing as a social good: build it publicly, regulate it firmly, tax speculation and protect tenants. That is the programme the Mamdani administration has begun to pursue in New York, in the face of landlords, a cautious governor and a hostile press. Whatever one thinks of the details, the global evidence, from Mactan to Manhattan, is that the market alone will not do it.
For further reading, see the London Prat and Bohiney.
The World Is Watching the Housing Question
The argument over whether a home is a right or an asset is not confined to New York. The comic press has been working the same seam from three angles: Manila News on the slump in condominium sales in Cebu, the London Prat on British pensioners being asked for referees and a letter from the vicar before they can buy (the piece is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney on an Ohio realtor whose beachfront showings now last two hours. The jokes land because the underlying logic is recognisable: when housing is priced and traded like a share, the mood of the market matters more than the people who need to live somewhere. Readers can find more of this coverage at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
For readers who like their housing politics with a laugh, the British comic press is always open: NewsBiscuit.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/