January 11, 2019 - The Philippine Star featured Pronove Tai International Property Consultants'2018 Metro Manila Office Market Overview and 2019 Outlook.

With Quezon City expected to have highest supply this year, Pronove is urging developers to be highly competitive in terms of rental prices.

“Those developers who have a one-stop shop would obviously be the most attractive,” Pronove Tai CEO Monique Pronove said referring to projects with mixed components such as residential, office and retail.

Average rents for Grade A buildings in Quezon City grew by one percent in 2018 to P850 per sqm per month from P848 per sqm the previous year.

“If you are a stand-alone, if you are just an office building, you don’t have all the other complementary services, then you have to do something to attract the market,” Pronove said.

She added that having a residential component to development may also attract locators from the POGO (Philippine offshore gaming operator) market.

“Particularly if you are looking at the POGO, one of the requirements for them is accessibility but also having a residential component very near the workspace. That is not the same as IT-BPM, because IT-BPM workers are mostly Filipinos, but here we have foreigners working in POGO firms,” she added.

Pronove emphasized that the vacancy in the Quezon City market is mostly concentrated in projects that are not along EDSA and the main thoroughfares.

“Those that are within EDSA have a big advantage. Those that are outside EDSA and the main thoroughfares would have to seriously think about being competitive in terms of their rates because as I’ve mentioned, you have very big players represented in Quezon City and most of their supply are being completed at this time,” she added.

Mike Munoz, research manager at Pronove Tai, emphasized that the lack of infrastructure in Quezon City is also a factor causing high vacancy levels.

“On a bigger scale, we also need to work on the infrastructure development in Quezon City. It’s not as competitive with other office districts. Traffic in Quezon City is the worst if you are going to compare it to other business districts,” Munoz said.

The story, written by Property reporter Cathering Talavera, can be read in full here: https://www.philstar.com/business/real-estate/2019/01/11/1883966/office-developers-qc-urged-offer-more-competitive-rates