Filipinos carry the heaviest housing financial burden in the world

The Philippines ranked first in the world for the number of households struggling with housing costs, according to Gallup World Poll data published by The Economist in March 2026.

Roughly 55 percent of Filipino respondents said housing costs caused them serious financial difficulty over the previous 12 months. The rate is higher than in Sri Lanka, India, South Korea, Indonesia and China, and more than triple that of the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Economist has been publishing since 1843, and Gallup, founded in 1935, runs surveys in over 140 countries covering 95 percent of the world's population.

How the Philippine government responded

Shortly after the figures were released, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development announced an expansion of the Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino (4PH) program, adding low-interest home loans, rental options, and incremental housing models.

While this response recognizes the severity of the problem, it only addresses one side of it. The 4PH expansion helps families who are buying pre-built units. It does nothing for the millions of Filipino families who are building custom homes on their own land, with their own money, hiring their own contractors.

While Metro Manila, for instance, is sitting on more than 80,000 unsold condominium units, the amount Filipino families spend building their own homes continues to rise. The Philippine construction market, now worth $45.48 billion, is growing by about 6.5 percent a year, with residential construction accounting for 41.9 percent of the total. In 2024 alone, residential construction reached P248.65 billion, up 15.8 percent from the year before.

More families are choosing to build, and more money is flowing into residential construction than at any point in modern Philippine history. They are doing it with almost no protection.

Every developed nation has this. The Philippines does not.

In Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and across Europe, independent building inspections are standard. In many jurisdictions, they are legally required.

A professional reviews the construction contract before the homeowner signs it, and once building starts, a qualified inspector with zero connection to the contractor visits the site at every major milestone, verifies the work against the approved plans, and reports directly to the homeowner. Payments are released only after verification, and material specifications are documented and checked against what arrives on site.

A Filipino family building a home worth P5 million to P30 million currently has no equivalent protection.

The Gallup data shows how hard it has become to afford one, and how little protection comes with it once a family finally can. It is time Filipino families stopped being left out when protections that are standard elsewhere have yet to become standard here.

A family's biggest investment should not have to be its biggest gamble.