The Ayala Realtor

03/06/2026

It was a privilege to attend a session with Sir Rex Mendoza, one of the Philippines’ most respected investment and financial experts. He currently serves as President and CEO of Rampver Financials and is widely recognized for his decades of experience in wealth management, financial planning, and investment education. Through the years, he has helped countless Filipinos make informed decisions toward building long-term financial security.

His discussion on investing during times of uncertainty reinforced the importance of maintaining a long-term perspective, focusing on fundamentals, and making disciplined decisions regardless of market conditions.

As professionals in the real estate industry, we believe that continuous learning is essential to serving our clients with excellence. By learning from respected leaders and experts, we become better equipped to guide individuals and families in making sound property investment decisions.

Because great realtors never stop being students.

28/05/2026

"The land that makes families wealthy in the Philippines has never been the land that everyone agreed was worth buying.

It has always been the land that everyone agreed was not worth buying yet."

In 1977 Ayala Land launched the first lots in Ayala Alabang Village at 240 pesos per square meter.

At that price a 1,000 square meter lot cost 240,000 pesos. A significant sum in 1977 but within reach of a professional couple, a successful small business owner, or a mid-career executive willing to commit to what was then widely considered a geographic gamble. Alabang was not just far from Manila in 1977. It was psychologically far. The South Luzon Expressway was incomplete. The area was dominated by farmland, sugarcane fields, and the kind of provincial quiet that made Metro Manila professionals question whether buying there was ambition or folly.

Most people passed.

A specific group of people did not.

That same 1,000 square meter lot purchased at 240 pesos per square meter in 1977 for 240,000 pesos is today valued at approximately 200,000 to 250,000 pesos per square meter according to verified 2025 Leechiu Property Consultants and JPatag Real Estate data. That is a current market value of approximately 200,000,000 to 250,000,000 pesos.

From 240,000 pesos to 200,000,000 pesos in 48 years.

That is an appreciation of approximately 833 times the original purchase price. An annualized return of approximately 16% per year sustained across nearly five decades without a single active management decision required beyond the original purchase and the subsequent refusal to sell.

No stock market investment in Philippine history has matched that return on a single asset held passively across the same period. No bond. No business. No cryptocurrency. A piece of land in Alabang purchased when Alabang was considered too far from everywhere worth being.

But the more analytically important question is not what the return was.

It is who made it and why.

The families who bought in Ayala Alabang in the late 1970s and early 1980s were not primarily real estate speculators. They were professionals and entrepreneurs who made one decision that was at odds with the conventional wisdom of their social circle and held that decision with enough conviction to ignore every subsequent opportunity to exit. They were doctors and lawyers who bought lots at 800 to 1,200 pesos per square meter in the early 1980s when prices had already risen from the 1977 launch and everyone around them said they had missed the opportunity. They were business owners who bought in the mid-1980s during the Aquino political crisis when property markets were soft, confidence was shaken, and the path of least resistance was to wait for certainty that never fully arrived.

Every entry point that felt expensive at the time looks incomprehensibly cheap today.

The 1977 buyer paid 240 pesos per square meter and thought they were being bold.

The 1983 buyer paid approximately 2,000 to 3,000 pesos per square meter and thought they were paying a premium.

The 1995 buyer paid approximately 15,000 to 20,000 pesos per square meter and was told by their banker they were overpaying for a southern address.

The 2003 buyer paid approximately 18,000 to 22,000 pesos per square meter when Philstar reported the village had already appreciated 83 times from its 1977 launch price.

Every single one of them was right. Every single one of them made money that their peers who waited for a better entry point never made. Because the better entry point never came. It never comes. The chart of Ayala Alabang land prices across 48 years is a straight line pointing up with occasional flattening during crises that resolved within two to three years and resumed their trajectory as if the interruption never happened.

The pattern is not unique to Ayala Alabang.

It is the pattern of every premium master-planned residential community that Ayala Land has ever developed in the Philippines. Greenbelt. BGC. Nuvali. Anvaya. Mirala. The entry price always felt high at the time. The holding price always looks obvious in retrospect. The families who held without selling across multiple political cycles, multiple economic crises, and multiple moments of genuine uncertainty are the families whose net worth statements today reflect a number they could not have produced through any other asset class at any comparable risk level.

Here is the forward implication that every serious investor reading this should be thinking about right now.

Ayala Land currently has active master-planned developments in Arca South in Taguig, Evo City in Kawit Cavite, and the Bulacan Aerotropolis corridor adjacent to the New Manila International Airport currently under construction. Each of these addresses is today where Alabang was in 1977. Far from the established center. Dismissed by the conventional wisdom as either premature or overpriced for their current state of development. Surrounded by the same combination of skepticism and indifference that surrounded every address that subsequently produced generational wealth for the families who bought early and held without selling.

The 240 pesos per square meter moment of 2026 is not in Alabang.

It is in the address that most people are currently dismissing as too far, too early, or too expensive for what it is right now.

That address exists. It is being priced and sold today. And the families who identify it correctly and hold it with the same conviction that the Alabang buyers of 1977 held their decision will be writing this exact same post about a completely different address in 2074.

The land that makes families wealthy in the Philippines has never been the land that everyone agreed was worth buying.

It has always been the land that everyone agreed was not worth buying yet.

26/05/2026

08/05/2026

POV: Your coffee run is about to get way closer inside the residential part of Nuvali ☕🌿 Another reason why living in Nuvali just hits different.

02/05/2026

SM will open its flagship Nuvali mall by the end of the year, marking the start of SM Prime's expansion across high-growth regional markets. | via ANC 24/7

Link to full story in the comments section.

01/05/2026

01/05/2026

New civic district rises in Ayala Land’s Nuvali estate

Ayala Land Inc’s flagship Nuvali estate is set to become a new administrative anchor for Southern Luzon following a land deal to establish a 60-hectare civic and governance hub.

Read the full story below 👇

29/04/2026

Ayala Land, Inc. is expanding its vision of integrated, lifestyle-driven communities with a new sports-focused partnership that could reshape the future of tennis in the Philippines.

28/04/2026

Ayala Corporation has been operating since 1834. It has survived two World Wars, multiple Philippine recessions, currency crises, and four decades of political upheaval. At 490 pesos per share, the market is giving you a 191-year-old compounding machine at a price that implies it has stopped growing. The data says otherwise.

The Fundamentals

Full-year 2025 core net income — which strips out all one-off items — rose 7 percent to a record 48.3 billion pesos. Including one-time gains from Mynt revaluation and asset sales, reported net income surged 46 percent to 61.4 billion pesos. Two numbers. Two different stories. The 48.3 billion is the one that matters for long-term investors. It is the recurring engine. It is what compounds.

The Segment Breakdown

BPI — Ayala’s single largest earnings contributor — posted net income of 66.6 billion pesos, up 7 percent, driven by a 15 percent expansion in total revenues to 195.3 billion and a loan book that grew to 2.6 trillion pesos. This is not a sleepy regional bank. BPI’s return on equity held at 14.9 percent — institutional-grade performance by any regional standard.

Ayala Land’s core net income climbed 8 percent to 30.6 billion pesos, with leasing and hospitality revenues up 7 percent to 48.7 billion on the back of higher mall occupancy, stronger office leasing, and improving hotel performance.

Globe’s gross service revenues hit an all-time high of 165.1 billion pesos, though core net income slipped 3 percent to 20.9 billion as higher depreciation and interest costs offset that revenue record. The telecom engine is not broken. It is absorbing the capital expenditure cycle that built its current infrastructure advantage.

The emerging businesses — AC Health, IMI — both swung to profitability in 2025 after years of drag. AC Health posted net income of 34 million pesos, reversing a 607 million peso loss the year prior. IMI returned to profitability at 13.5 million dollars after a 49.8 million dollar loss previously. Two former loss-makers now contributing instead of subtracting. The portfolio is inflecting.

The Balance Sheet

Parent net debt fell 18 percent to 136.3 billion pesos, bringing the parent net debt-to-equity ratio down sharply to 0.76x from 1.06x a year earlier. This is the most important number in this entire analysis. A conglomerate actively deleveraging while simultaneously growing core earnings is the textbook setup for multiple expansion. Ray Dalio calls this the beautiful deleveraging. Ayala is executing it in real time.

Since 2019, Ayala has repurchased approximately 15.4 million shares worth nearly 9.8 billion pesos. Management buying back its own stock at scale is the most credible signal of undervaluation that exists. It costs real money. It cannot be faked.

The Valuation Case

At 490 pesos per share, AC trades at roughly 5x core earnings — for a conglomerate that owns the Philippines’ largest bank by market cap, its most profitable property developer, a top-two telco, a 20-gigawatt renewable energy platform targeting 2030, and an indirect stake in GCash — the most downloaded financial app in the country with over 100 million registered users.
Book value per share stands at 630.82 pesos. The stock is trading at a 22 percent discount to book. You are buying one peso of Ayala’s net assets for 78 centavos.

The Dividend Picture

Ayala pays 9.21 pesos per share annually in dividends, yielding approximately 1.88 percent at current prices, paid semi-annually. The yield is not the story here. The story is that a company trading at a discount to book, buying back its own shares, deleveraging aggressively, and printing record core earnings is still paying you while you wait.

The Honest Risk

ACEN’s reported earnings remain volatile — reported net income fell 60 percent in 2025 due to impairment charges on Vietnamese wind projects, weaker solar irradiance, and lower spot prices. Globe’s margin compression is structural, not temporary, as the telco absorbs a multi-year capex cycle. And the conglomerate discount — the market’s perpetual habit of underpricing holding companies relative to their sum-of-parts — has persisted for over a decade on the PSE.

The Conclusion

Peter Lynch said the best stock to buy is the one you already understand. Every Filipino over 30 has lived inside the Ayala ecosystem — BPI accounts, Ayala malls, Globe SIMs, ACEN power, GCash wallets. The business is not abstract. It is embedded in daily Philippine life at every income level.

Warren Buffett pays fair prices for wonderful businesses. At 490 pesos, trading at a discount to book with record core earnings, an actively deleveraging balance sheet, and a buyback program running since 2019, Ayala is not asking you to pay a fair price. It is asking you to pay less than one.

191 years of survival is not luck. It is the compounding of institutional discipline across generations. The question is not whether Ayala will still be here in 20 years. It is whether you will be a part of it.

Not financial advice. Always do your own due diligence.