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Should you buy real estate in Manila now?

Is Manila real estate actually cheap now?

Manila real estate is easier to negotiate today, but most properties still need a meaningful discount before we would call them cheap.

The clearest evidence comes from Metro Manila’s condominium market. Leechiu Property Consultants counted 82,900 unsold units across 616 actively selling buildings in Q2 2026, the highest inventory since the firm began tracking the market in 2016. At the current sales pace, that represents about 34 months of supply. Leechiu’s historical norm has been closer to 12 months.

Buyers are returning. First-half condo take-up reached about 14,500 units, up 6% year on year, while Q2 alone recorded 7,255 sales. Ready-for-occupancy units accounted for 72% of Q2 sales, up from 52% in Q1. Buyers clearly prefer something they can inspect and use immediately.

Yet inventory still increased because new additions and cancellations exceeded absorption. So this is a buyer-friendly market, not a citywide fire sale.

Developers are stretching payment periods, pushing ready-for-occupancy units and offering stronger incentives. Resale sellers in overstocked buildings face even more pressure. The useful number is the price someone will actually accept, not the price printed in a developer brochure.

Metro Manila condo measure	Earlier benchmark	Latest level	What it tells us
Unsold inventory	82,500 in 2025	82,900	Record stock
Inventory absorption	~12 months historically	~34 months	Supply remains heavy
H1 take-up	Lower a year earlier	~14,500 units	Demand up 6%
Q2 RFO share of sales	52% in Q1	72%	Buyers favor completed units
Buildings actively selling	—	616	Competition remains broad

Are Manila condo prices actually falling now?

Manila condo prices are weakening beneath the headline indexes, especially in the resale market.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas still showed NCR condominium prices up 3.3% year on year in Q4 2025. The same series, however, recorded a 1.8% quarterly fall. The direction changed before the annual comparison fully caught up.

The Philippines’ latest Financial Stability Report makes the split even clearer. From Q1 to Q4 2025, primary Metro Manila condominium prices slipped only 1.6%, while secondary prices fell 3.1% on average. Resale units were already 7% to 41% cheaper than comparable new units.

That gap matters more than the headline index. Developers can protect official list prices through long payment schedules, waived fees, parking incentives and cash discounts. An individual owner who genuinely needs to sell has fewer ways to hide the adjustment.

Leechiu’s latest rental figures point the same way. Its research director argued that weaker rents were probably pulling both primary and resale values lower. With large inventories and tenants still enjoying plenty of choice, that is hard to dismiss.

So the clearing price of many Manila condos is probably softer than the asking price suggests.

Is Manila’s condo oversupply finally getting better?

Manila’s condo glut is slowly becoming easier to absorb, but the market still has far too much stock for us to call the problem solved.

Colliers measured remaining inventory life at 13.4 years at its mid-2025 peak. That fell to about eight years by the end of 2025 and 6.8 years in Q1 2026. Its methodology differs from Leechiu’s 34-month estimate, so the absolute numbers cannot be compared directly. The trend is more useful: units are moving faster.

Developers have also become much more careful about what they launch. Colliers’ latest Q2 2026 review says Metro Manila launches fell sharply as companies concentrated on clearing completed inventory.

The awkward part is that the construction pipeline still has to empty. Nearly 13,000 condominium units are expected to complete during 2026, almost twice the roughly 8,000 delivered in 2025. The C5 Corridor and Bay Area account for a large share.

After that, the picture improves. Colliers expects the completion pipeline to taper from 2027, which gives the market a realistic path toward lower vacancy if sales remain healthy.

For now, buyers still have the better hand. There is enough stock chasing demand that we would negotiate aggressively rather than worry about missing the market.

Does Manila’s 25% condo vacancy rate make buying too risky?

Metro Manila’s roughly 25% condo vacancy rate is a serious warning, although the risk changes dramatically from one neighborhood to another.

Colliers expects residential vacancy to peak around 25.6% before beginning to ease. Roughly speaking, that means about one vacant unit for every three occupied units across the stock it tracks.

The Bay Area is in another league. Vacancy there has already moved above 50% and Colliers expects it to approach 60%. A landlord in that market can end up competing against dozens of similar furnished units inside the same development.

Prime established districts look much healthier. Recent Colliers figures placed residential vacancy below 15% in Makati CBD, Rockwell Center and Ortigas Center.

Commercial demand points in the same direction. Leechiu’s latest first-half property review found BGC office vacancy at just 8%, the tightest major business district, while no new office supply is expected in Makati CBD or Ortigas Center until after 2028. Those employment centers create a much deeper pool of potential residential tenants.

A Metro Manila average therefore tells us very little about a specific condo. In Manila, a 10-minute location difference can matter more than the overall city trend.

Area	Recent vacancy picture	Tenant base	Our view
BGC	Strong occupancy; office vacancy ~8%	Corporate, BPO, GCC, expatriate	Strong
Makati CBD	Residential below 15% in recent data	Very diversified	Strong
Rockwell	Residential below 15%	High-income local and expat	Strong
Ortigas Center	Residential below 15%	Corporate and local end-users	Reasonable
Metro Manila	~25–26% projected	Mixed	Weak overall
Bay Area	>50%, possibly near 60%	Much thinner after POGO exit	High risk

Has the POGO exit made Manila Bay property a value trap?

Much of the Manila Bay condo market still looks too risky for us, even after prices and rents have fallen sharply.

The Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator shutdown removed a tenant base that had become unusually important to Pasay and the Bay Area. POGO employees had occupied both offices and large numbers of nearby condos. When that demand disappeared, landlords suddenly had to compete for a much smaller pool of tenants.

Leechiu’s mid-2026 rental data show how severe the reset became. Bay Area/Pasay rents were around ₱706 per square meter per month, roughly 59% below their pre-pandemic level. Makati was down 18%, Ortigas/Mandaluyong 25% and Alabang/Muntinlupa 42%. BGC had already recovered to roughly its previous level.

The Bay Area also keeps adding residential stock. Colliers expects the district to become one of Metro Manila’s largest condo markets while vacancy remains exceptionally high.

There are reasons the area could eventually recover. Entertainment, casinos, airport access and major mixed-use projects give Manila Bay genuine economic activity. But investors buying now have to survive the current rental market first.

A cheap-looking unit surrounded by dozens of empty identical units can stay cheap for years. We would only become interested after a large resale discount produces attractive numbers using current rent and conservative vacancy assumptions.

Are Manila condo rents finally recovering?

Manila condo rents are recovering in BGC, but most major districts still charge materially less than they did before the pandemic.

Leechiu’s latest numbers put BGC at around ₱1,105 per square meter per month, essentially back to its earlier benchmark. Taguig outside the core BGC sample was also up about 15%.

Elsewhere the recovery remains incomplete. Makati averaged approximately ₱887 per square meter, still 18% lower. Ortigas/Mandaluyong stood around ₱729, down 25%. Alabang/Muntinlupa was roughly ₱715, down 42%, while Bay Area/Pasay remained the weakest at about ₱706.

Colliers expects Metro Manila residential rents to stay broadly flat through the current year because vacancy is still high.

BGC’s performance tells us something useful: tenants will still pay up for the right location. What they no longer need to do is pay premium rents for average condos simply because supply is scarce.

That makes the rental market much more selective than it was during Manila’s previous condo boom.

Area	Approx. rent / sqm / month	Change from pre-pandemic level	Current picture
BGC	₱1,105	+0.1%	Recovered
Makati	₱887	-18%	Improving slowly
Ortigas/Mandaluyong	₱729	-25%	Still soft
Alabang/Muntinlupa	₱715	-42%	Weak
Bay Area/Pasay	₱706	-59%	Very weak
Taguig	₱715	+15%	Improving

Can a Manila condo still produce a good rental yield?

Yes, a well-bought Manila condo can still produce a decent rental yield, but many premium new projects are far too expensive relative to the rent they can earn.

Global Property Guide’s latest dataset places average gross residential yields in the Philippines at roughly 5%. Individual Metro Manila units vary much more widely, with some smaller apartments producing high-single-digit gross yields while large premium units struggle to reach 4%.

Makati shows why entry price matters so much. Recent market data place many secondary CBD condos at roughly ₱250,000 to ₱310,000 per square meter. At rents around ₱850 to ₱1,000 per square meter per month, that translates into roughly 3.3% to 4.8% gross.

New luxury condos can cost around ₱500,000 per square meter, with selected prime projects considerably higher. At ₱500,000 per square meter and ₱1,000 monthly rent, gross yield falls to only 2.4%.

The building may be newer, better designed and more prestigious, but the tenant rarely pays twice as much rent simply because the buyer paid twice as much for the unit.

We are much more interested in completed properties where the rental history already exists and the seller has accepted the market’s current price.

Is BGC or Makati better for Manila property investment now?

BGC currently has the stronger rental market, while Makati offers more opportunities to buy older condos at prices that actually make sense.

BGC is the clearest residential winner in the latest rental data. Rents have recovered to around their pre-pandemic benchmark, while Leechiu recently found office occupancy close to 92%. Among active companies looking for space in Makati and BGC earlier in 2026, IT-BPM firms represented 76% of demand, and 82% of that IT-BPM requirement was targeting BGC.

That gives BGC unusually strong employment-led residential demand.

Makati has another advantage: depth. It has decades of completed stock, many well-established buildings and a much wider resale market. Prime CBD land values remain among the highest in the Philippines, yet an older condo can sometimes trade for a fraction of the price per square meter of a new luxury tower nearby.

For a tenant, BGC may be easier to rent out.

For an investor looking for value, we would search both markets but spend more time digging through Makati resales. A motivated seller in a good older Makati building can create a better investment than a beautiful new BGC unit sold at an aggressive developer price.

Factor	Makati CBD	BGC
Rental recovery	Still below old peak	Essentially recovered
Corporate demand	Strong	Very strong
Resale choice	Excellent	Good
Older discounted stock	Plenty	Less abundant
New luxury pricing	Very high	Very high
Best use today	Value hunting	Rental resilience

Should you buy a new Manila condo or a resale unit today?

We would usually buy a Manila resale condo today because the price gap with new projects has become difficult to justify through rent alone.

The Philippines’ Financial Stability Report found secondary Metro Manila condos trading 7% to 41% below new units at the end of 2025. In parts of Makati, the difference can be even more striking once we compare older completed properties with premium preselling developments.

Developers know buyers are price-sensitive. They are extending payment periods, pushing ready-for-occupancy inventory and using incentives to protect headline prices. Higher Pag-IBIG loan ceilings have also widened financing access to units in the roughly ₱4 million to ₱12 million range, where much of the available RFO inventory sits.

Those promotions are helping sales, but a five-year payment plan does not automatically make the underlying property cheap.

Completed condos let us check the actual building, association dues, maintenance, elevators, noise, tenant mix and achieved rents. We can also compare multiple sellers inside the same tower. With so much finished stock available, that information has real value.

We would pay a new-build premium when the project offers something genuinely difficult to replicate. For an ordinary investment condo, the resale market currently gives us more room to find mispricing.

Are high interest rates still a reason to avoid Manila real estate?

Yes, expensive money still makes mediocre Manila property deals unattractive, particularly when gross rental yields sit around 3% to 5%.

The Bangko Sentral raised its policy rate to 4.75% in June 2026, and BSP data still showed that level in late August. Inflation has also remained uncomfortable: national headline inflation was 6.1% in August, while NCR inflation was 4.1%.

Mortgage borrowers pay a spread above the central-bank policy rate. Once the financing rate materially exceeds the property’s net rental yield, leverage becomes a drag on cash flow.

Suppose a unit earns 4.5% gross. One month without a tenant cuts annual collected rent by about 8.3%. Association dues, repairs, property tax and leasing commissions then eat into what remains. The net yield can easily fall into the 2% to 3% range before financing.

Cash buyers face the opposite setup. Higher rates hurt sellers and financed buyers, which can improve the bargaining position of someone arriving with cash.

So we would treat current rates as another reason to reject an average deal, while using them to negotiate harder on a genuinely good one. A bit boring, maybe, but the maths wins here.

Does the weak Philippine economy make buying Manila property a bad idea?

The Philippine slowdown makes short-term Manila property speculation harder to justify, but it has not killed the demand supporting the best business districts.

Philippine GDP grew only 2.3% year on year in Q2 2026. Household consumption increased 2.8%, industry contracted 2.4% and gross capital formation fell 9.2%. Those are weak numbers for an economy that spent years growing around 6% or faster.

Slower growth affects property quickly. Buyers become more careful, developers delay launches and companies take longer to commit to new offices.

Yet Metro Manila’s corporate demand has held up better than the headline GDP figure might suggest. Leechiu recorded 293,000 square meters of net office demand nationally in the first half of 2026 as space returned by tenants dropped 57%. Metro Manila accounted for 83% of national office take-up, while Makati alone reached 106,000 square meters.

Leechiu also identified another 353,000 square meters of active office requirements, led by IT-BPM and global capability centers.

That gives us more confidence in residential demand around BGC, Makati and other employment hubs than in investor-heavy condo districts that depend mainly on new buyers continuing to arrive.

Could Manila’s condo shortage eventually come back?

Yes, the current construction slowdown could make good Manila condos scarcer later, but we would expect that process to take years rather than months.

Metro Manila used to complete around 13,000 condo units per year during the 2017–2019 boom. Developers kept building into a market subsequently hit by the pandemic, remote work, weaker foreign demand and the POGO exit.

They are now changing course. Colliers says developers have sharply reduced launches and are concentrating on clearing ready-for-occupancy inventory. Once the unusually large 2026 completion wave passes, new supply should fall.

There is also a second long-term driver: transport. The Metro Manila Subway and wider rail expansion should make selected neighborhoods easier to reach, which matters enormously in a city where commuting time can determine residential demand.

We would be careful about paying for that story in advance. Developers already use future stations to justify higher prices, sometimes years before passengers can actually use them.

Our preferred version of this bet is simple: buy an existing property that works with current rent and let lower future construction or better transport become upside rather than the reason the deal survives.

Can foreigners safely buy Manila real estate?

Foreigners can legally buy Manila condos, but they generally cannot own Philippine land directly, so a foreign buyer needs to check the ownership structure before paying anything.

The Philippine Constitution restricts private land ownership largely to Filipino citizens and qualifying Philippine-controlled companies. Condominiums provide the main route for foreign residential buyers.

Under the Condominium Act, foreigners can own individual condo units as long as the project remains within the permitted foreign-ownership ratio. In the usual structure, at least 60% of the condominium corporation must remain Filipino-owned.

That means a perfectly good unit can still become unavailable to a foreign purchaser if the building has already reached its foreign quota.

Before buying, we would verify the condominium certificate of title, master deed, association rules, unpaid dues, tax status and remaining foreign ownership capacity. Those checks matter more than an agent’s assurance that “foreigners can buy condos in the Philippines.”

Foreign buyers should also remember that Manila's house-and-lot market is largely outside their direct ownership options. That concentrates foreign demand into condos and makes choosing the right building even more important.

Do Manila condo yields still look good after all the costs?

A Manila condo showing a 5% gross yield can easily end up producing only around 3% net, so we would never judge an investment from the advertised yield alone.

Vacancy is the first leak. One empty month removes 8.3% of annual rent. If an agent receives one month of rent for finding the next tenant, another 8.3% of that year’s gross income disappears.

Condominium dues can be substantial in amenity-heavy buildings. Add real-property tax, insurance where relevant, repairs, furniture replacement and occasional special assessments, and the gap between gross and net income widens quickly.

Transaction costs also discourage short holding periods. Philippine property purchases and sales can involve documentary stamp tax, transfer tax, registration charges and either capital-gains taxation or other tax treatment depending on the seller and nature of the property.

A condo bought at a 5% gross yield therefore needs a stable tenant and several years of ownership before the economics become attractive.

This is another reason we prefer a discounted resale producing good income now over a preselling unit whose return depends heavily on future appreciation.

Cost	What happens to the return
One vacant month	Removes about 8.3% of annual rent
One-month leasing commission	Removes another ~8.3% of annual rent
Association dues	Recurring monthly deduction
Repairs and furniture	Irregular but unavoidable
Property taxes	Reduce annual net income
Purchase/sale taxes and fees	Make short-term flipping expensive
Mortgage interest	Can exceed the property’s net yield

Is Manila property better for living in than investing right now?

Yes, Manila real estate currently makes more sense for many long-term owner-occupiers than for investors chasing rental income or a quick resale.

Someone planning to live in Makati, BGC, Ortigas or another established neighborhood for seven or ten years benefits directly from today’s buyer-friendly conditions. There is plenty of completed inventory, sellers have competition and developers are motivated to move ready-for-occupancy units.

An owner-occupier also receives an economic benefit that does not appear in the rental yield: the rent they no longer have to pay elsewhere.

Investors have a harder benchmark. Their condo needs to outperform other places where the same capital could be invested, after vacancy, taxes, dues and maintenance.

That difference becomes especially important with expensive luxury units. Paying a premium may be perfectly rational for someone who wants a particular location, view and lifestyle for the next decade. The same property can be a poor investment if rent covers only 2% or 3% of its purchase price each year.

If we were buying a Manila home for ourselves and knew we would stay, we would be considerably more willing to buy now than if the objective were purely financial.

What Manila property would we actually buy now?

We would currently look for a completed resale condo in BGC, Makati, Rockwell or another proven employment-led location where the seller is more motivated than the buyer.

The building would need actual tenant demand, sensible association dues, good management and a layout that renters commonly want. A compact one-bedroom or practical two-bedroom generally gives us a wider tenant pool than an oversized luxury apartment.

Price would decide the deal.

The current market has too much inventory for a token 5% or 10% discount to excite us. A resale sitting 20% to 30% below comparable new stock deserves much more attention, provided the difference reflects seller motivation rather than a problem with the building.

We would also check achieved rents rather than agent projections. If several similar units have recently leased around ₱50,000 per month, underwriting ₱65,000 because the broker says “rents will recover” makes little sense.

The areas we would treat most carefully are those with very high vacancy, huge numbers of interchangeable units and a large dependence on investors rather than owner-occupiers. The Bay Area remains the clearest example.

Today’s Manila market rewards people willing to compare individual buildings and individual sellers. Buying the city through a generic “Philippines property will rise” thesis is far less convincing.

So, should you buy real estate in Manila now?

Yes, selectively. We would buy good Manila real estate now if the property is completed, well located and genuinely discounted, while avoiding generic preselling condos and heavily oversupplied districts.

The market still has serious problems. Unsold Metro Manila condo inventory has reached a record 82,900 units. Residential vacancy is expected to peak around 25.6%. Most major districts still have rents below their pre-pandemic levels. Nearly 13,000 additional condos are completing during 2026, inflation has stayed high and Philippine economic growth has slowed sharply.

There is also enough fresh evidence to reject the idea that Manila property is simply collapsing. First-half condo sales rose 6%. Buyers increasingly chose ready-for-occupancy units. Inventory absorption has improved from its worst levels, developers are reducing future launches, BGC rents have recovered, and corporate demand remains concentrated in BGC and Makati.

That leaves us with a fairly sharp split.

A long-term owner-occupier who can negotiate a good completed unit has a strong reason to look now. A cash investor buying a discounted resale in BGC, Makati, Rockwell or another proven rental pocket can also find attractive opportunities.

We would be much less enthusiastic about paying a developer’s full preselling price for a standard investment condo. The current rent rarely supports those valuations.

And we would still demand a very large discount in places such as the Bay Area, where the vacancy and rental numbers remain difficult to ignore.

Manila is a buyer’s market today, but that advantage only becomes valuable when we actually use it. The best opportunity right now is to make sellers compete for our money.

Who is the author of this content?

BAMBOOROUTES

A team specialized in real estate investing in APAC countries (Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, etc.).

We are a team of financial experts, legal professionals, developers, and local real estate specialists dedicated to helping people like you avoid mistakes when investing in real estate in a foreign place, particularly in Manila. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.