PROPERTY portal provider Lamudi reported that demand for housing has improved a year after the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
Monitoring the market status amid the health crisis, most price segments of properties listed on its web site experienced year-on-year (YoY) dips in pageviews in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020.
Despite the decline, future prospects were promising by then as house seekers surveyed by Lamudi last year said that they were keeping their property buying timeframe open, with 34 percent considering a purchase in 2021.
As expected, the first three months of this year points to recovery across all prices, with high-end properties proving most resilient during a time when cash is king, while the affordable category showed the dream of homeownership is alive even in these difficult times.
Per Lamudi’s portal, the luxury market—the only segment that posted positive year-on-year (YoY) growth in pageviews in Q1 of 2020—saw a 33.7-percent average growth in pageviews YoY in Q1 of 2021.
Leads for this category were particularly strong in the first three months of last year compared to the same period in 2019, with houses priced over P20 million registering a 222-percent increase. It rose by an additional 18 percent from January to March of this year.
Trends like this indicate that those with more purchasing capacity took the opportunity to invest in real estate during a crisis. The same goes even for the low-cost housing when laborers showed a strong desire to own a home.
For affordable houses for sale, properties priced less than P450,000 saw a 46-percent growth in pageviews in Q1 of 2021 compared to the same period of last year, recording the highest recovery rate in the affordable segment.
Likewise, residential units in this price point were the second most asked property in the first three months of 2020 compared to Q1 of 2019 at 128-percent hike in leads. It continued to increase by 38 percent in Q1 of 2021.
House hunters in this category not want to realize their dream, but also practically consider the proximity of their abode to essential establishments and place of work since mobility remains restricted with the ongoing lockdowns.