Vista Land set to launch more housing projects in second half

Homebuilder Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. plans to launch more residential projects in the second half to capitalize on the shift in customers’ preference for house-and-lot developments in the provinces.

Vista Land said because of the pandemic, homebuyers and investors were now putting a premium for safety and looking for homes with adequate space and within an integrated community.

“This pandemic has impacted our performance for the first half of 2020 and we still expect the rest of the year to be challenging. However, we are happy to see encouraging signs for both our residential and leasing businesses,” Vista Land chairman Manuel Villar Jr. said.

“This shift of customer preference bodes well for the company since Vista Land has always been the leader in horizontal housing and has since positioned its housing products very well across the country through its unparalleled geographical presence in 147 cities and municipalities in 49 provinces nationwide,” Villar said.

Vista Land derived 50 percent of revenues from areas outside Mega Manila in the past five years.Villar said the company’s June sales already reached 70 percent of pre-COVID level, with July and August sales tracking better than June.

“Thus, if this sales trajectory continues, we might decide to launch more projects in the fourth quarter. We do not need to acquire new land anyway as we have an existing land bank of about 3,000 hectares,” Villar said.

He said that on the leasing business, 79 percent of Vista Land’s gross floor area resumed operations, up from 20 percent during the enhanced community quarantine.

The remaining 21 percent remained closed because of government-mandated restrictions.

“We are also happy that because of the synergy between our residential and leasing businesses, our malls are still enjoying decent foot traffic since most of our commercial properties are within our existing residential community,” Villar said.

Vista Land launched two residential projects with value of about P2 billion in the first half.

“This pandemic may have upended the real estate industry and the economy in general yet a lot of opportunities are still there especially in our sector. Right now, we are making the necessary adjustments to our business operations in order to better position the company once the economy fully recovers,” Vista Land president and chief executive Paolo Villar said.

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Article originally posted by Manila Standard last September 8, 2020 9:10pm and written by Jenniffer B. Austria.