By Ruelle Albert D. Castro
[ Malaya.com.ph ] July 21, 2010
Ayala Land Premier, the high-end realty unit of listed Ayala Land, Inc., capped its development of the five hectare One Serendra development in Fort Bonifacio Global City, launching the P4 billion West Tower.
The P4 billion tower comes at the "apex" of the first development in the 240 hectare property that heralded Ayala Land’s foray into the privatized military property in Taguig City in 2004, according to Ayala Land president Antonino Aquino.
All in all, Ayala Land Premier poured in P20 billion in investments in One Serendra which unveiled a series of company projects that target the triple A market.
Aquino said they expect Ayala Land Premier to continue contributing 40 percent of profit in the residential business of the group, as they expect the full Q2 performance to be "in the same level of consistency" as was experienced in 2001.
Ayala Land reported a Q1 profit of P1.02 billion, down 14 percent from a year ago.
Ayala Land has revitalized its launching of projects for the year after a slowdown following the financial crisis in 2008.
"Demand has tripled, as far as market is concerned," said Aquino, adding that they launched an estimated P10 billion worth of projects in the last 30 days alone.
With the West Tower, Ayala Land is making available to the market a total of 372 units of one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom properties with prices starting at P8.5 million per unit.
West Tower boasts of 10 "limited edition" units that come with a garden, pool, and terrace feature that is said to be not available in the market, with two of such units being offered at P75 million. This makes some of the units in West Tower the most expensive property to be sold by Ayala Land in Fort Bonifacio.
Despite this, Ayala Land has already received P2.7 billion worth of requests to buy units on the first week of its launch, which already covers 50 percent of the project’s total units, according to Rex A. Mendoza, Ayala Land chief marketing and sales officer.
Projects in One Serendra have received great interest from people downscaling their dwellings from high-end subdivisions and homes in posh villages to a sub-urban community offered by condo-living or for those families who are decongesting their old homes, according to Mendoza.
Ayala Land Premier fetches a 10-15 percent premium on its selling price, according to Mendoza, but even so, buyers of these properties have already benefitted from the increase of value of their asset since it has been introduced.
Currently properties sold at One Serendra averages at P150 per square meter, which is already 66.7 percent higher than the previous price of P90 per square meter.
Ayala Land shares ended up P0.25 at P14.25.
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