The development puts in doubt the fulfilment of current renters’ dreams of owning a house in this category.
Despite the slower loan takeout for this sector, the state-run housing finance institution showed a strong financial standing with a high collection rate last year.
Benjamin Felix Jr., Pag-Ibig Fund deputy chief executive officer of the Home Lending Operations Cluster, reported that in 2022 the agency released P916.54 million in loans for socialized housing, down five percent from the P974.45 million in loans released in 2021.
This, as the number of borrowers for socialized housing units in the Visayas dropped 12.6 percent to 2,151, from 2,463 in 2021, Felix said during the Pag-Ibig Fund’s Stakeholders Accomplishment Report (StAR) in Visayas at the Bai Hotel Cebu Friday.
Socialized housing is part of Pag-Ibig Fund’s Affordable Housing Program (AHP) for minimum-wage and low-income earners to own a home unit, designed to accommodate workers earning not more than P15,000 a month inside the National Capital Region (NCR), while P12,000 is the income ceiling for workers outside of NCR.
Under the AHP, Pag-Ibig Fund offers a subsidized interest rate of three percent per annum, the lowest rate available in the market today.
Pag-Ibig finances socialized home loans worth up to P580,000 and socialized condominium units worth up to P750,000.
“Mindanao and Visayas share the same story on socialized housing performance (in which) the developers have confronted new challenges in building socialized housing projects,” Felix said.
Felix added that more talks had to be conducted with the developers to convince them to construct more socialized housing units to offset the decline in loan takeout.
Marilene Acosta, Pag-Ibig Fund chief executive officer, also reported a decrease nationwide in socialized housing loans as a percentage of total housing loans released in 2022, with the P8.28 billion in socialized housing loans accounting for only 18 percent of total housing loans.
This reflects 18,656 minimum wage and low-income earners’ desire to own housing units.
“Dati po (In the past) it was 30 percent of our takeout (in 2021). Ngayon po (Now) it is 18 percent,” Acosta said.
“Why did the number of borrowers go down? Because the housing value already went up. And we can no longer take out any socialized housing package. Developers are no longer producing much because of the P580,000 ceiling. For condominium units, they say P750,000 is also low,” Acosta said in Tagalog.
But Acosta said the agency still performed well last year.
Acosta said Pag-Ibig Fund recorded the highest Performing Loans Ratio (PLR) in its history of 92.40 percent as of March 2023.
The PLR was 90.69 percent at the end of 2022 and 88.28 percent at the end of 2021.