Manila’s Bel-Air Neighbourhood Is as Posh as It Sounds
The enclave, close to the “Wall Street of the Philippines” and top schools, is among the affluent pockets benefitting from a surge in the capital’s luxury home prices
4 min
Makati, a major business district in the Philippines, has roots dating to the 17th century, but it wasn’t until the mid-1900s that the city began its rapid development.
Within that urban hub, the planned community of Bel-Air, once suburban housing requested by Philippine Airlines pilots (hence “Air” in the name) has matured into one of the most upmarket communities in Metro Manila. It’s now among the affluent pockets benefitting from a high-end housing boom in the Philippine capital, which led the world in luxury price growth last year, according to the latest Prime Global Cities Index from London-based property firm Knight Frank.
Manila’s luxury home prices remained the fastest rising in the world in the first quarter of this year as well.
“This increase is driven by rising housing demand, with agents reporting a surge in requirements from expatriates returning to manage local businesses as the economy shows strong performance,” Knight Frank wrote in the report.
The name Bel-Air refers to both the barangay—an administrative division of a larger city—and to Bel-Air Village, one of several exclusive gated housing communities developed in Makati. Bel-Air Village was developed in four phases during the 1950s and 1960s, identified by number.
With just over 36,000 residents according to the 2020 Philippine census, Barangay Bel-Air has the second-largest population of Makati’s 33 barangays. Makati, with a population of nearly 630,0000, is now a major Asian economic centre, home to leading local and multinational enterprises and known colloquially as the Wall Street of the Philippines.
Boundaries
The level, tree-lined streets of Bel-Air cover 171.2 hectares (more than 420 acres) in central Makati, southeast of Manila.
Barangay Bel-Air’s borders unevenly resemble a tobacco pipe and the borders touch several others. Poblacion and Guadalupe Viejo bound it to the north, Urandeta, San Lorenzo and Forbes Park to the south, Guadalupe Viejo and Pinagkaisahan to the east and Santa Cruz and San Antonio to the west.
While Bel-Air Village is only made up of residences, the wider barangay encompasses mixed-use areas like Salcedo Village. Barangay Bel-Air also includes the Ayala North office development, Ayala Triangle Gardens and the Buendia Avenue Extension.
Price
A survey of online real estate listings by financial company Digido indicated buyers can expect to spend between 135 million to 424 million pesos (US$2.35 million to US$7.39 million) when purchasing in Barangay Bel-Air.
At the price spectrum’s lower end, luxury buyers can purchase condos or Bel-Air Village homes with smaller living spaces or fewer amenities and updates.
A Knight Frank listing for a four-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-story home in Bel-Air 1, with a pool and parking for two cars costs 220 million pesos. Meanwhile, a five-bedroom, tri-level penthouse in Barangay Bel-Air’s Avignon Tower is selling for 230 million pesos.
A review of listings from the DotProperty multiple listing service show updated and newer build four- or five-bedroom homes in Bel Air Village priced between 350 million and 400 million pesos. A Luxe Realty listing for a two-story Bel-Air 4 house with a 698-square-meter lot is at the market’s higher end, 400 million pesos. It has four bedrooms, three baths, a swimming pool, gazebo, rooms for domestic staff and a three-car garage.
Housing Stock
Bel-Air Village has 950 lots and 32 streets, on which three- to five-bedroom homes are common. Homes frequently feature amenities like swimming pools, outdoor living spaces like lanais and multi-car garages. Original Bel-Air homes date from the 1950s and ’60s and borrow architectural cues taken from mid-century American suburban developments. Light-filled, recently constructed luxury homes are also available to buyers at a premium.
Luxury condominium options within Barangay Bel-Air include the 46-story, four-tower Jazz Residences and the 36-story Regency at Salcedo.
Amenities
Bel-Air residents live near some of the best high-end shopping in the Philippines. This includes the upmarket Glorietta and Greenbelt malls. The new One Ayala mixed-use development, which includes offices, retail, a four-star hotel and a public transport hub, is expected to fully open this year.
Bel-Air is located a short drive from the Manila Polo Club and the members-only Manila Golf and Country Club in neighbouring Forbes Park, the latter of which offers skyline views from the greens.
Bel-Air families are spoiled for choice regarding school options. Several faith-based and international schools are within the city of Makati. Bel-Air is also a 15-minute drive from two of Metro Manila’s most prestigious schools, both in Bonifacio Global City. International School Manila offers middle and high school education, while the British School Manila educates students from nursery school through high school graduation.
What Makes It Unique
Properties in the gated Bel-Air Village offer residents privacy, security and access to exclusive facilities like badminton and basketball courts, function rooms and a gym. Though metro Manila is known for having few green spaces, Bel-Air 2 and 3 have parks.
Bel-Air residents are within walking distance to Makati’s Ayala Triangle Gardens, a leafy two-hectare urban park. Residents can also shop for fresh food and other wares at the 100-plus vendor Salcedo Community Market, open every Saturday at Jamie C. Velasquez Park in Salcedo Village.
Who Lives There
Bel-Air households skew older and smaller than other parts of Metro Manila, but the barangay’s central location, cleanliness and security make it attractive to families with school-age children. Convenient access to Makati’s central business district makes Bel-Air appealing to executives who work there. Makati is also home to several embassies, with Bel-Air housing the Consulates General of Ireland and San Marino.
Notable Residents
Former Manila mayor Lito Atienza and his son, television host and former Manila city councilor Kim “Kuya Kim” Atienza, are among the residents who have lived in the barangay over the years. Actors Dominic Ochoa, Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera have also called Bel-Air home over the years
Outlook
Manila experienced a 26.2% year-over-year increase in the price of luxury homes in the first quarter, according to Knight Frank, the highest of the 45 major cities around the world ranked in its index released Friday.
Colliers International expects the ultra-luxury segment of Philippine real estate to remain resilient “amid the rising interest and mortgage rates.” The firm reported Makati central business district has seen improved rates of condominiums leased in 2023.
“Leasing demand continues to be driven by returning expatriates looking for bigger units that are also near offices and international schools,” the Colliers report said.
With luxury developments proliferating in other areas of Metro Manila, these factors may suggest future scarcity and price growth in elite barangays like Bel-Air.
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The Republican nominee says it would help bring down home prices, though these buyers account for a fraction of U.S. home sales
3 min
Former President Donald Trump said he would ban undocumented immigrants from obtaining home mortgages, a move he indicated would help ease home prices even though these buyers account for a tiny fraction of U.S. home sales.
Home loans to undocumented people living in the U.S. are legal but they aren’t especially common. Between 5,000 and 6,000 mortgages of this kind were issued last year, according to estimates from researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington.
Overall, lenders issued more than 3.4 million mortgages to all home purchasers in 2023, federal government data show.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, made his comments Thursday during a policy speech to the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan.
Housing remains a top economic issue for voters during this presidential election. Rent and home prices grew at historic rates during the pandemic and mortgage rates climbed to levels not seen in more than two decades. A July Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters rank housing as their second-biggest inflation concern after groceries.
Both major candidates for the 2024 presidential election have made appeals to voters on housing during recent campaign stops, though the issue has so far featured more prominently in Vice President Kamala Harris ’s campaign.
Trump has blamed immigrants for many of the nation’s woes, including crime and unemployment. Now, he is pointing to immigrants as a cause of the nation’s housing-affordability crisis. Yet some affordable-housing advocates and real-estate professionals said Trump’s mortgage proposal would fail to bring relief to priced-out home buyers.
“It’s unfortunate that given the significant housing affordability crisis that is widely acknowledged across most partisan lines, we are arguing about a minuscule segment of the market,” said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, an affordable-housing advocacy group.
Gary Acosta, chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, a trade organization, said, “It’s just another effort to vilify immigrants and to continue to scapegoat them for any issues that we have here in the United States.”
A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. can obtain an obscure type of mortgage designed for taxpayers without Social Security numbers, most of whom are Hispanic. The passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed banks to use identification numbers from the Internal Revenue Service as an alternative to Social Security, extending a number of financial services to people without legal status for the first time.
Mortgage loans for undocumented immigrants are typically higher interest and borrowers include legal residents who have undocumented spouses, Acosta said. Lenders include regional credit unions and community-development financial institutions.
In his speech, Trump said that “the flood” of undocumented immigrants is driving up housing costs. “That’s why my plan will ban mortgages for illegal aliens,” he said.
Trump didn’t elaborate on how he would enact a ban on such loans.
Though mortgages for undocumented people living in the U.S. are relatively rare, residential real-estate purchases by foreign nationals are big business , especially in expensive coastal cities such as New York and Los Angeles. These sales have declined in recent years, however.
Close to half of foreign purchases are made by people residing abroad, while the other half are made by recent immigrants or residents on nonimmigrant visas, according to an annual survey by the National Association of Realtors. Many affluent foreigners buy U.S. homes with cash instead of obtaining mortgage financing.
In his Thursday speech, which focused mostly on other economic matters such as energy and taxation, Trump proposed other measures to bring down housing costs, including cutting regulations for builders and allowing more building on federal land. Similar ideas appeared in the housing policy outline Harris released in August .
The former president has spoken on housing-related issues in speeches at other recent campaign stops, including in Michigan last month, where he touted his administration’s 2020 overturn of a policy that had encouraged cities to reduce racial segregation .
“I keep the suburbs safe,” Trump said. “I stopped low-income towers from rising right alongside of their house. And I’m keeping the illegal aliens away from the suburbs.”
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