Developer teams up with gov’t to address housing backlog

National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC) formalized a new partnership with AQUIRA Land Development Corporation (ALDC), on December 17, 2021 through a memorandum of agreement.

Under the MOA, AQUIRA Land will be covered by NHMFC’s Housing Loan Receivables Purchase Program. Under the agreement, NHMFC purchases AQUIRA Land’s future receivables from individuals or groups that purchase homes from them. Thereafter, these customers will pay NHMFC for their homes monthly, at low interest rates, over long periods of time. This will allow ALDC to remain liquid and to continue to build as well as start more projects, and NHMFC to fulfill its mandate of providing affordable financing for housing for low-income Filipinos. Ultimately the goal is to end the several decades old affordable housing backlog.

NHMFC President Carlo Luis Rabat summed up the need for the partnership this way: “We know that the government’s housing agencies cannot claim to fully solve the growing housing backlog in the country. We need to help and support our private industry partners like AQUIRA Land, in accomplishing our mission of providing decent homes for our fellow Filipinos.”

Already a successful entrepreneur in the wellness and beauty industry when he set up ALDC, AQOIRA Land President Erick Armigos intimated that he became aware of the need for low cost housing while he was studying means to reward loyal employees: “I was thinking of providing low cost housing assistance as an incentive for employees who stay with the company for 10 years, but also for every employee to have better access to housing loans. It was while I was studying the feasibility that I learned of the housing backlog.”

He also intimated how the COVID-19 pandemic firmed his resolved to become a low-cost housing developer: “Because of the pandemic, the home has become much more important, it is now also a classroom, a warehouse for small businesses, and it’s also an office for those working from home.”

Ready to hit the ground running in 2022, AQUIRA Land already has a pilot project on a 16 hectare property in Barangay Sampaloc, Tanay Rizal. ALDC aims to build 2,600 units in three years, the project is set to break month before the second half of the year.