The Philippines, real estate market, has been a lucrative investment opportunity for Filipinos and foreigners alike for quite some time now.
The Filipino residential property market soared in 2016 due to commendable economic growth, supported by reducing lending rates, strengthening US dollar, improvement in tourism, heightened public and private expenditure resulting in job generation, as well as the robust inflow of money from foreign investors or OFWs.
This trend is expected to sustain in 2017 which promises to be another profitable year for the Filipino real estate market.
HomeLand, Foreign Money
The majority of the potential investors in this market comprise of foreigners, expats and OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers).
Foreigners are allowed to purchase property in the Philippines as is covered by the Condominium Act which puts a cap of 40{ed162fdde9fdc472551df9f31f04601345edf7e4eff6ea93114402690d8fa616} on the FDI investment in a particular real estate project. A foreigner may purchase an apartment or a condo but may not purchase land. He can only lease it for 50 years which can then be extended for 25 years.
OFWs and Filipinos residing abroad, have the same ownership rights as the domestic Filipino. Nearly 2 million Filipinos leave their home country each year to work abroad, but all the while save to nurture their dream of investing in a home for their family in the Philippines.
The Philippines is the second largest recipient of remittances throughout Asia. The remittances by the OFWs hit a record high of $2.56 billion in December 2016, up 3.6{ed162fdde9fdc472551df9f31f04601345edf7e4eff6ea93114402690d8fa616} on a year-on-year basis as per Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas released data, and this upward trend has been steady for the past ten years, showing no signs of waning.
However, not even 10{ed162fdde9fdc472551df9f31f04601345edf7e4eff6ea93114402690d8fa616} of the 10.2 million Filipinos working abroad have yet made this coveted real estate investment which leaves a lot of scope for the real estate’s developers to penetrate the market even further, confirming a continual upward graph of the property prices.
Thus, the industry is dynamic, and 2017 shows signs of being an exciting year for the real estate brokers and developers.
QuikWire- Providing tools to exploit the Goldmine
However, in spite of the Philippines being declared a real estate superstar, developers often find it difficult to close deals. The reason for this is a simple ground level difficulty faced by Expats, OFWs and Foreigners in carrying out secure cross-border transactions such as payment of mortgages, bills, instalment deposits and so on.
Quickwire has been that significant venture, which has altered this situation dramatically, by transforming the cross-border payment landscape, riding the wave of digitisation. A platform which enables secure cross-border bill payments by enterprises in the Philippines which handle foreign-based clients, Quickwire has been manna from heaven for the real estate market, enabling smooth bill payments and collection without any hassle.
This innovative cross-border payment platform has been set up to allow users to pay their bills through their debit or credit cards, ACH or Bitcoins without compelling the user to have any specific bank account as is usually the case, thus avoiding aberrant payments and money mismanagement.
One of the few MSBs (Money as a Service Business) to be registered with the esteemed US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) Quickwire provides the service of efficiently using multiple channels and facilities provided by international banks for collecting and dispersing payments.
They have many facilities in the USA and are supported by Wells Fargo and many major local banks. The electronic ACH used by this platform allows them to collect payments from any bank account in the US and also enables them to transfer to and receive money from anywhere in the world.
Since US banks underwrite them, they can offer very low credit card processing rates, competitive exchange rates and speedy service about any bank in the Philippines.
Approved by the Third Party Payments Aggregator (TPPA) in the Philippines, Quikwire is currently focusing on developing the real estate market in the Philippines through its indispensable services at enabling secure cross-border payment facilities.
LSI: real estate market in the Philippines, cross-border payment platforms, Filipinos working abroad, Foreigners allowed to purchase property in the Philippines, Filipino residential property market, the Philippines real estate market, real estate investment by foreigners in the Philippines.
