Bringing technology to socialized housing

Lhoopa, a property technology company started by Marc-Olivier Caillot and his Filipina wife Sabrina in 2018, is helping change how more low-income Filipinos can access socialized housing.

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Lhoopa, according to its COO Frederic Levy, is utilizing technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to help more Filipinos own their first affordable home, which would typically be a low-cost housing unit of around 20 to 30 square meters that would cost anywhere from P600,000 to P1.2 milllion.

Lhoopa, Levy explained, helps low-income earners — with the help of technology and Al — to find the property development and location they prefer, and connects them to the necessary government financing institutions such as Pag-IBIG or private financial institutions to acquire their desired property.

Lhoopa’s assistance, Levy said, can even extend up to the move-in process.

More simply, the Lhoopa COO elaborated, Lhoopa is a technology platform that acts like Grab —facilitating the property journey of home buyers, pretty much like a ride hailing app.

In a white paper titled “From backlog to breakthrough - New blueprints for unlocking housing access,” Lhoopa pointed out that “the Philippines faces a backlog of 8.25 million units as of March this year, with projections showing that this figure could swell to 22.6 million by 2040 if left unaddressed.”

The Lhoopa white paper noted that “affordability, accessibility, financing models and information flows were designed around stable, formal employment different from today’s service sector-driven and largely informal workforce.”

Thus, the white paper argues, “the challenge is not only to build more homes, but to redefine how access is delivered.”

The study argues further that the problem is not only a lack of supply, but also access, as most Filipinos remain excluded from financing and information systems that were designed for a different economic reality.