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MANUEL B. VILLAR, Jr.
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When developers were offering 240 sqm. lots, he started to build houses at 120 sqm. at very affordable prices. He priced his offerings within the range of government-provided loans so that homebuyers need not fork out a large equity. And even with the equity requirement, he came out with in-house financing backed with a "second mortgage" on the house (the first mortgage being with the principal loan giver) so that homebuyers can immediately move in.
His projects sold like hotcakes he became a millionaire at only 26 years old.
He then initiated mass housing projects to achieve economies of scale and introduced development projects within existing subdivisions by buying off their rights of way. His various innovations practically created the country's mass housing industry the Philippine Center of Investigative Journalism calls him 'the dean of the [Philippine] real estate industry."
By the mid-1980s, in the aftermath of the economic crisis spawned by the Aquino Assasination, Villar consolidated his business and collected on his receivables. Other big developers, on the other hand, continued on their business expansion. When the crunch came with the deep devaluation of the peso, many big developers collapsed while Villar was busy buying rawlands at give-away prices.
Villar recalled that many developers then just packed their bags and left the country in the aftershocks of the crisis. But he stayed on and believed in the country's eventual recovery. "I was seeing the big taipans like Henry Sy building this biggest mall in the country and Lucio Tan and John Gokongwei all expanding. I said to myself that if I'm wrong then at least I'm in their company."
With a traditional market shrinking, he began to offer his projects to overseas contract workers who were then awash with cash after the peso devaluation. Overseas workers first bought small appliances from Henry Sy's SM Malls to fuel surging consumer demand. After which, they started to buy the big ticket item from Manny Villar's Camella and Palmera Homes.
When the economy bounced back with the assumption of the Aquino government, Villar was already holding an extensive landbank which became the foundation of his housing empire. "I continued in housing development seeing that I'm the only one left in the business," he said. "Housing, after all, is a fundamental need."
By 1995, when he listed his holding company C&P Homes at the stock exchange, he was already holding more than 2,000 hectares of prime lands and had already built more than 100,000 homes to become the biggest homebuilder in Southeast Asia.
For his business achievements, he was made cover story in the Far Eastern Economic Review and his life story featured in Asiaweek, Forbes, AsiaMoney and Asian Business Review.
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