Metro Manila Traffic

In 2019, the Boston Consulting Group claimed that Metro Manila had the second worst traffic in 416 cities in 7 countries. They contended that Filipinos spend 66 minutes in traffic daily.

Those who live in Fairview and work in Makati would laugh at this number, knowing that each way would cost them at least 2 hours.

The traffic was so bad that proximity to offices or schools became a top preference in home searches. For example, foreign employees of the Asian Development Bank typically limited their rental search to 3 developments: One Shang (due to proximity), Rockwell, and BGC (both against traffic during rush hour).

I believe there's an unspoken global threshold for how much time people are willing to spend in traffic, which is around 45 minutes to 1 hour (one-way). This is how long someone would commute to work in Chicago or Sydney, for example.

The pandemic has eased traffic somehow. But NCR traffic is slowly becoming bad again as companies reverse work-from-home arrangements. The traffic last December is a glimpse.

The second photo shows the historical data for car registration in the country. NCR contributes roughly a quarter of this number. Unreliable public transportation has prompted Filipinos to purchase a vehicle. It's the first thing new graduates would do as soon as they become employed. If not a car, a motorcycle. We're adding more vehicles faster than we can create roads.

Thus, Philippine traffic is a significant driver of condo demand in the metro. We can expect rental rates to recover once traffic becomes unbearable again. And unless there's a considerable shift in commerce from Metro Manila to neighboring cities (e.g., Laguna), we can expect real estate prices in NCR to continue to be elevated.