MANILA - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has released the results of its Residential Real Estate Price Indices, a first for the Philippines, aimed at measuring the rate of increase in prices of real estate assets ranging from condominiums, bungalows, apartments and town houses.

The result showed that housing prices rose 9.2% in the first quarter of 2016. There was a spike in prices of condominiums, which was explained by strong demand for the real estate product.

Condominiums are preferred, particularly in the National Capital Region (NCR), due to the convenience they offer in areas with heavy vehicular traffic.

BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said: "9.2% represents a vibrant housing industry in the Philippines and the robustness of this conclusion is confirmed by the trends in consumer prices as well as the recent result of the consumer expectation survey."

"Because of the vibrant nature of the housing industry, asset price inflation is quite remote because it is driven by robust demand, not oversupply," he added.

There is no asset bubble for the meantime, but because the sample size is still small (four quarters from Q2 2015 to Q1 2016), it is hard to establish a real trend using the data.

Guinigundo said once a few more years of data are collected, the conclusions of the study will be more robust. This would make RREPI a better tool to guard against the formation of asset bubbles.

Guinigundo said the study could eventually also help in the proper valuation of real estate assets around the Philippines, to foster improved taxation and a more vibrant secondary real estate market.