Boardroom Tea: Unsold condos and an untapped housing market
What do billionaires Jack Ng Jr. and Edgar Saavedra know that everybody seems to ignore?
Let’s start with some numbers. According to Joey Roi Bondoc, Colliers Philippines Research Director, as of end-2025, unsold condominium inventory in Metro Manila stood at 79,200 units—29,400 of which are RFO units. Some unsold units are in Quezon City, Manila, Bay Area, Pasig City, and Alabang-Las Piñas.
At roughly P5.7 million per unit, that’s a total value of unsold condominium units that has reached more than a staggering P400 billion. Unmoving. Unable to be liquidated and invested in new projects. Unmonetizable.
On all accounts, this is the problem that kills any investor: not the size of capital, not the financing, not the tech. It’s the ability to sell, turn around, and use the proceeds to start another project. Sleeping inventories are the nightmare of every businessman.
Two billionaires figured something out that others are missing. And me: I wonder what their boardrooms are thinking.
The math that changes everything
Let’s divide that P400 billion by P800,000—what you’d need to buy a socialized housing unit. You get roughly 500,000 units of affordable housing that could be built with capital currently trapped in unsold luxury condo inventory.
Assume you can distribute those across 40 municipalities in Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite. That’s roughly 12,500 units per municipality. Let’s say you can build two socialized housing projects per municipality; that means there will be 6,250 units to sell per project.
According to Jack Ng, Jr., a developer moving 600 units per month—a pace his own company has demonstrated—you can sell everything out in around 12 months.
Unfortunately, the real estate sector is building the wrong kinds of dwelling units and selling them to the wrong people.
Megawide’s Edgar Saavedra and Raemulan Lands’ Ng figured that out and have quietly amassed sales numbers that would put most players to shame.
Saavedra has shifted Megawide’s construction prowess toward socialized housing—leveraging the company’s engineering efficiency to reduce cost and speed up projects.
Ng, fresh off his EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2024 Philippines victory, has delivered 57,000 housing units since 2016, with 50,000 designated for social housing. His zero-equity P750,000-unit model makes homeownership accessible to minimum-wage earners while maintaining profitability.
According to Kerwin Padua, national president of the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA), in a previous interview, new requirements for the issuance of Licenses to Sell at the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development are creating serious friction.
Yet neither billionaire seems deterred. They continue to build projects and expand.
After all, a home is not just walls, windows, and doors, they said. It’s the place where a person becomes their best, most dignified self. Pull a family off the street or out of a shanty and into a real home, and behavior changes.
So why aren’t more billionaires doing this?
The answer likely sits in two places: speed and regulatory friction. Luxury condos move slower but carry higher margins. Social housing moves faster but demands operational excellence and patience with regulators. Most billionaires prefer the former. Saavedra and Ng have built their empires on the premise that scale matters more than margin.
And right now, with P400 billion sitting idle and 40 million Filipinos still living without adequate shelter, their contrarian play doesn’t just make financial sense. It makes moral sense too. Sweet.
The market will catch up. It always does. The question is whether the catching up happens fast enough.