The Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Associations (CREBA) in Philippines is looking at the $3.2 billion potential foreign revenues from overseas Filipino workers (OFW), who are on the lookout for good property investments. The decade-long depressed state of the local real estate market has forced the industry to set its sights on the lucrative overseas market, which is composed of 8 million Filipinos. Aside from Filipinos, there are also foreign investors and tourists, who are looking for investment opportunities.
The portal of e-CREBA’s GIS mapping project could serve as an effective medium in globally promoting the investment and tourism potentials of the country. The portal’s central property data base and powerful search engine aggregates various categories of real property offered by different sellers and displays their brochures, GIS maps, ownership documents, as well as virtual tours or video walkthroughs. This gives prospective overseas buyers right in front of their computers not only a wide choice and comprehensive information on each property, but also a “look and feel’’ thereof.
The e-CREBA has addressed the peculiar nature of realty transactions and the distance separating the buyers and sellers, showcasing the properties, fielding inquiries, negotiating closing deals, effecting reservations and managing remittances. Through e-CREBA’s electronic documentation functionalities secure realtime web conferencing facilities composed of text, voice and video chat with document collaboration tools as well as payment gateways and reservations monitoring system will considerably reduce these difficulties.
