Manila’s residential towers slowly emptying out amid an exodus of online casinos from the Philippine capital

Name: American backpacker stranded in the Philippines due to coronavirus pandemic lives like a local
Uploaded: 2020-10-28T08:11:55.000Z
Duration: 1 min 54 s
Description: American backpacker stranded in the Philippines due to coronavirus pandemic lives like a local

The Philippines’ online gaming industry has taken a beating amid weaker demand due to the pandemic, with many operators giving up their licences

Rents in Manila’s residential condominiums are likely to fall 10 per cent on average by the year-end, according to property broker KMC Savills

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Manila’s residential property sector, which relies heavily on Chinese online gaming operators, has taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Handout

Bloomberg

Published: 4:11pm, 28 Oct 2020Updated: 4:11pm, 28 Oct 2020

An exodus of online casinos from Manila is slowly emptying the Philippine capital’s residential towers, pulling rents lower, according to property broker KMC Savills. Next year could be worse, it said.

“We’ve seen entire residential towers emptied out,” Michael McCullough, managing director at KMC in Manila said on Tuesday. While vacancies from online casinos are so far just a “rounding error” in a multimillion square metre home market, “we’ll continue to see a lot more of that continuing to compound in the next six months,” he said.

The third quarter also saw “massive losses” in the office market as the pandemic shut many businesses, KMC said in a report, even as it sees demand from outsourcing companies absorbing the glut. Metro Manila’s occupancy deteriorated for the second consecutive quarter with nearly 47,800 square metres of vacated work spaces and incoming pipeline will continue to add pressure, it said.

The Philippines’ US$8-billion online gaming industry, which caters mostly to Chinese punters, is taking a beating from higher taxes and weaker demand due to the pandemic. The once burgeoning sector – which employs mostly mainland Chinese for customer support and marketing jobs – helped boost property prices and rents across metropolitan Manila in the past three years.

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American backpacker stranded in the Philippines due to coronavirus pandemic lives like a local

The industry’s exposure to the Philippines’ residential market stood at 1.8 million square metres in 2019, according to broker Leechiu Property Consultants. Office space vacancy in Metro Manila has risen to 7.3 per cent as of the third quarter from 5.4 per cent in end-2019, KMC said in its report.

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