Financing, lack of land and bureaucratic red tape are some of the concerns tagged by the Chamber of Real Estate Builders Associations (CREBA) that need to be addressed this year.
Noel Carino, CREBA president, told reporters the group will continue to push for the Comprehensive Integrated Shelter Finance Act, a dedicated fund source for homebuyers from the contribution of ta government financial institutions.
“Financing is a very important part of housing. To address the 6 million backlog is daunting. The source of funding now is just the banks and Pag-IBIG Fund,” Carino said on the sidelines of the CREBA general membership meeting in Makati City yesterday.
At this rate where only 300,000 units of houses are built a year, Carino said “when will ever meet the 6 million?”
He added interest rates should be lowered to make housing affordable while creating a balance between margins or profit for developers on one hand and the income of homebuyers on the other.
Carino said CREBA is pushing for the increase in the cap on the cost of socialized housing of P580,000 as project development including acquisition of land, is not cheap.
Developers are required to allocate 20 percent of their development to socialized housing but Carino said CREBA wants to see how effective the compliance is in addressing housing.
“There has been several modifications, there should be a better way to incentivize instead of making it punitive for developers to participate in socialized housing,” he said.
He, however, said horizontal housing development, particularly in Metro Manila does not actually address mass housing needs.
On the part of developers, vertical housing entails more capital than a horizontal project
“Horizontal housing is for upper middle income, it’s for the rich and affluent who need a second home,”Carino said.
Carino also called on the need to eliminate corruption in local government units and ease processing of permits and other requirements prior to project development.
He said the government should identify “blighted areas” and relocate the informal settlers in housing sites that are near their places of work.