Making the hard sale: Migrant sales agents and the precarious labours of Philippine real estate brokerage

Servicing circulation: Sales agents and the Philippine real estate industry

Since the industry’s exponential growth in the early 2000s, public and private sectors alike have attributed the strength of the Philippine real estate industry to the property demand from overseas Filipino workers. According to these assessments, the steady flow of migrant remittances over the years served as the key driver of growth, fuelling the construction and development of suburban homes in gated communities (Ortega, 2018; Pido, 2017) and more recently, accelerating the rise of condominium projects in mixed used enclaves located in select major cities (Kleibert and Kippers, 2016). However, the rise in the number of condominium projects cannot not be traced solely to the supposed increase in demand and nonstop flows of migrant remittances. As Cardenas (2020) argues, often missing in said accounts is the strategic capture and shaping of these migrant remittance flows by several Philippine national conglomerates and their real estate development arms.

Significant government regulations accompanied the increased production of condominium projects that began early 2000s. These regulations, according to one lawyer interviewed, helped promote a ‘sense of protection’ in condominium investments. Prior to the passing of Republic Act No. 4726 (1966), for instance, there were no statutory rights and standardized procedures on the rental, sale and management of apartments within a building. While the passing of this act inevitably led to increased interest, he noted that it was not until a 2008 stipulation in RA 4726, stating that foreigners are allowed to ‘own’ a condominium unit, that the industry saw significant transformations in the condominium market. This was in addition to the Dual Citizenship Law of 2003 (RA 9225) that allowed former Filipinos who became naturalized in other countries to avail of the rights and privileges of Filipino citizens with regards to land and property ownership. Crucial developments also occurred in the realm of banking and finance, with Philippine banks’ total stock of loans to the household sector increasing since 2008. This was supported by low lending rates offered by the banking system and the steady growth of remittances of overseas Filipinos, which helped fund debt obligations. In 2010, housing credit began rising significantly. By 2016, loans granted to the household sector for the construction, improvement and acquisition of residential property increased by 186.9% in a period of 6 years (Armas, 2016).

Despite this increase in housing credit, it is important to note that finance, both for housing and building construction, generally lagged for both consumers/investors and developers. Whilst housing loans remain largely inaccessible for most low to middle income households, developers themselves have also had to resort to becoming ‘financial engineers’. After the 1997 crisis, because of the increased difficulty in securing loans from private commercial banks, developers resorted to pre-selling as a more lucrative option than bank financing (Ledesma and Jirasetpatana, 2001). By serving as an in-house financing scheme, pre-selling also provides developers with ‘greater latitude’ to defer construction progress to better suit market conditions. Other benefits came with this pre-selling strategy as well. From a marketing point of view, sales agents interviewed for this study believe that OFWs find purchasing pre-sold condominium units more amenable to their situation. Since the typical payment arrangement with a major developer comprises of two major phases, many perceive this arrangement as providing ample time for the OFW to finish paying for their condominium units in full. First, an OFW pays monthly instalments for 2 years for the down payment or 20% of the total price. Then, once the down payment is fully paid, OFWs then applies for a Philippine bank loan to cover the 80% remaining balance.

During the construction surge of mid-income condominiums in the Philippines, major developers began amping up their efforts to locate, influence and eventually ‘land’ the OFW investor. Although mid-income condominiums ² were reportedly geared towards ‘start-up’ families residing in the Philippines (Samaniego, 2011), OFWs were deemed the more capable customers of these cheaper units. Nevertheless, concrete challenges come with targeting a highly geographically dispersed market population and one that has temporary employment, increasingly so in recent years. Since temporary migration regimes have become more the norm than the exception, more and more Filipino workers now only obtain contract-based employment in large Asian cities and in the Middle East, with the latter receiving more than 50% of all labour emigration (PSA, 2020). Thus, according to one marketing manager, although the dollar or euro earning Overseas Filipinos from US, Canada and Europe are most coveted, developers could not ignore the big population of OFWs in Asia and the Middle East.

This significant shift in labour migration flows thus required brokerage and marketing work that is simultaneously mobile, flexible and wide-reaching. Since the 1990s, major real estate companies in the Philippines have been able to rely on a very active property brokerage system, composed of formal and informal brokers. According to Sajor (2005), tensions between the two groups later brought on calls for professionalization in the industry whereby certain ‘closure strategies’ were employed to draw stronger distinctions between informal and formal brokers and deny opportunities and rewards to the unlicensed. Yet, due to several constraints, including the persistence of transactions based on trust and personal ties rather than professional credentials, the unlicensed still had ample space in which to operate. This failure to completely professionalize the industry later led to ‘innovative arrangements that straddle the formal and informal, the legal and illegal’ (Sajor, 2005: 1336). For example, an unlicensed broker would often agree to split commissions with a licensed broker, provided that the latter could provide ‘cover’ in the legal property transaction. The tacit acknowledgement and institutionalization of these types of practices from the government came in 1998 when unlicensed brokers were strongly encouraged to register as ‘licensed salesmen’ under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Yet, as Sajor (2005) notes, the uptake for this type of accreditation was lukewarm due to the stipulation that licensed sales agents be tied to a single broker for all their transactions. The same accreditation system still exists today, but there are still many sales agents who do not acquire such accreditation, relying instead on verbal contracts and personal bonds with brokers.

Decades later, major Philippine real estate developers have successfully incorporated this form of networked and hierarchized labour into their corporate structures. Fauveaud (2020) in his study of the ‘foreignization’ of the condominium market of Phnom Penh argues that in certain contexts developers and other actors act as ‘agents of financialization’ to attract foreign buyers. For example, he shows that Cambodian developers often partner with both local and international real estate agencies that are under executive sales contracts to assist developers sell their units to foreign buyers. Major Philippine developers differ insofar as several have managed to build their own real estate sales and marketing divisions, fortified by a cadre of licensed brokers and sales agents, licensed and unlicensed. Under the not so tightly regulated system, brokers and sales agents supposedly work together in the hopes of selling as many condominium units as possible in order to receive much-coveted commissions. It must be noted that though ‘incorporated’ – that is working for one developer – sales agents are, in fact, not direct employees of the real estate companies, and therefore ineligible for health and other work benefits. In addition, due to the rampant practice of labour ‘flexibilization’ in the Philippines (Ofreneo, 2013; Silarde, 2020), large companies including those in real estate, are able to and have increasingly hired sales agents under short-term work contracts. Depending on the developer, some agents may be promised to receive a monthly allowance (not wage) to help with any work expense they might incur. However, in the case of one of the biggest companies, this monthly allowance of 10,000PHP (179 USD) is contingent on reaching a sales quota during their 3-month contract. Still, these conditions have hardly worked as deterrents. Given the persistent lack of formal employment in the Philippines and relative ease with which sales agents can begin work, real estate companies have had steady access to large pools of labour, a segment of which have signed up to be part of international sales teams sent out to locate, secure and facilitate the circulation of migrant worker investments and remittances into Philippine real estate.

More than intermediation? Sales labour in real estate

As of late, migration scholars have already begun detailing the different catalysts and processes through which migrant workers engage in real estate investments. Though still inextricably linked with the need for housing, migrants’ real estate investments are increasingly viewed as ‘possessing their own economic rationality’ (Boccagni, 2020: 254) As Boccagni elaborates, as well as acting as safe deposits for migrant savings (and therefore not surplus capital), real estate investments also function as ‘insurance mechanisms’ especially in contexts where there is great economic uncertainty and lack of state support and welfare for migrants when they return. Within this growing literature, developers have been shown to employ various strategies to reach migrants and eventually capture their hard-earned remittances. One strategy is to hold exhibitions and other events in key locations wherein a sizeable migrant population could be residing. Some developers, with the help of local and transnational real estate agencies and brokers, aim to attract migrant investors by cultivating their nostalgia for home (Pérez Murcia and Boccagni, 2022; Thurairajah et al., 2020; Zapata, 2018), and their longing for upward mobility and aspirations for a more global/cosmopolitan identity (Bose, 2014; Varrel, 2020).

In such analyses, the intermediary such as the real estate agent, broker or personal relation emerges as key figure in connecting potential migrant investors with real estate companies. Geographic work on real estate intermediaries have illuminated the significance of the actual labour that goes behind circulations of real estate capital, migrant investments included (Koh, 2022; Krijnen et al., 2017; Rogers et al., 2015; Smith and Mazzucato, 2009; Wijburg et al., 2021). Searle (2018), for example, points out that contrary to the more popular conceptions of fluid circulations and smooth landings of capital that finance real estate production, contradictions and conflicts inevitably arise; as such, the work of intermediaries is highly crucial in that it is they who secure and ensure circulation by not only creating linkages but also maintaining them through their skilful navigation of various complex social networks and organizations (Cook, 2015; Radicati, 2022). At the same time, this analytical focus on the significance of brokerage work has not entirely shielded brokers and intermediaries from scrutiny. Some studies have pointed out how brokers’ practices of ‘matchmaking’ become means to engage in a kind of rent-seeking wherein brokers gain extra profit from any land or real estate transaction (Nirmal Roy, 2020; Sud, 2014). Others have specifically highlighted the vulnerabilities and risks migrants are exposed to when they decide to ‘invest’ in real estate through certain intermediaries. For instance, during Spain’s deregulation of mortgage credit, Palomera (2014) and Suarez (2022) found that many migrants from South America were subjected to the unscrupulous activity of developers and financial institutions. According to Suarez (2022), some financial advisors engaged in a form of financial predation whereby Ecuadorian women got lured into debt through deeply rooted notions of motherhood and familial obligation. Lastly, in contexts where state support and access to mortgage or any kind of finance are lacking, different and perhaps much more subtle forms of financial predation have been recorded. Studies have documented how informal channels, even personal or familial networks, can similarly put migrant workers, their finances and their investments at risk (McGregor, 2014; Melly, 2010; Obeng-Odoom, 2011, 2015; Sandoval-Cervantes, 2017).

Efforts to lay bare the possible dangers and risks faced by migrant workers, because of or despite the assistance of intermediaries, dispute pervasive claims that real estate investments could only bring future gains or profits for the investor. However, putting too much emphasis on the role of intermediaries and how some of their profit-seeking practices endanger investments may also preclude further inquiry and critique into developers’ strategic and specific utilization of the labour of real estate intermediaries and to what ends. Instead, this paper pays closer attention to how real estate developers extract value from the work of intermediaries, beyond their work in helping secure and facilitate the flow of migrant investments into real estate. Taking into account their unique structural position, specific duties and precarious work conditions within developers’ corporate structures, I now turn to scholarly analyses of Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) initiatives to understand the work of Filipino real estate sales agents and marketing partners.

According to scholars and critics of BoP initiatives, sales agents of multinational corporations make significant contributions to corporate accumulation (Roll et al., 2021). BoP initiatives first gained popularity amongst various multinational corporations when US based management and marketing expert CK Prahalad championed the sales and marketing efforts of the Indian subsidiary of the Anglo Dutch multinational Unilever. Central to Unilever’s and other BoP initiatives is the transformation of the so-called ‘unproductive’ poor into efficient and self-governing sales agents or entrepreneurs who would sell products such as Unilever’s Lifebuoy soup as ‘social good’ to the poor (Cross and Street, 2009). Yet, as scholars have noted, this fostering of active and independent entrepreneurialism amongst sales agents at the lowest rungs of big transnational business entities is not out of corporate benevolence for the ‘poor’ (Dolan and Johnstone-Louis, 2011; Dolan and Rajak, 2018). Instead, it is part and parcel of corporations’ intensive marketing strategies which are meant to offset slow growth in already saturated markets by increasing the sales of new items or commodities such as cosmetics (Wilson, 1999), health supplements (Cahn, 2008; Hardon et al., 2019) and ITC products (Foster and Heeks, 2013; Maurer, 2012; Varman et al., 2012) in still ‘untapped’ territories. In addition, because sales agents are instructed and trained to recruit more sellers from their personal networks, Roll et al. (2021) argue that companies therefore must be seen as profiting from their sales agents’ social networks as well. That is, aside from increasing sales volumes, sales agents and their networks serve as ‘social infrastructures’ in the new sales territories to the extent that companies could do away with the high costs and added risks of building physical and material infrastructures as part of their business expansion. And, since independent sales agents and their networks are supposedly governable from a distance, companies further save on cost by remaining unburdened with legal, regulatory and financial responsibilities compared to their other locally-based competitors.

The social density of these sales networks has likewise become a generative research strand for most anthropological studies of BoP initiatives and those of direct selling, multilevel marketing schemes and social enterprises (Cross, 2019; Huang, 2017; Schiffauer, 2018). In these studies, dense social relations within networks, including various ways of being, notions of kinship, community and morality, cannot be viewed as external, but rather as ‘always inside’ and ‘highly constitutive’ of capitalist enterprises (Bear et al. in Cross, 2019); As the ‘stuff’ that keeps social networks intact, active and operational, these social values therefore also count as valuable economic resource for big companies (Elyachar, 2012). Drawing from these insights, the sections that follow will demonstrate that, first, in the case of Filipino real estate sales agents, their sales labour can only be better understood if and when situated, not just within conditions of indebtedness found in their social networks and certain Filipino migrant worker communities, but also within linkages forged out of kindness and desire to help one another. Second, by closely honing on the sociospatial dimensions of the BoP and other similar marketing initiatives, we clearly see how Philippine real estate developers do not simply mobilize and deploy sales agents to sell. Through sales agents’ informal labour subcontracting of ‘marketing partners’, developers are able to advance into and penetrate migrant spaces of ‘advocacy’ and new and emerging spaces of migrant in/formal work, which, during the pandemic, helped ensure the consistent flow of migrant worker capital and investments into the Philippine real estate industry. Next, I discuss how major real estate developers exported their sales labour to Dubai during the height of Covid-19. Then, I examine how migrant community leaders and struggling migrant workers in Dubai become real estate ‘marketing partners’.

Exporting sales agents

Dubai has long figured in the popular imaginaries of many Filipinos as a place where one can try their luck and strike big. Scholar Hosoda (2015) ascribes this in part to media representations since the early 2000s of the city being relatively ‘open’ at least in two senses. First, many regard Dubai, compared to other Middle Eastern states, as the most cosmopolitan, liberal and accepting of other cultures. Second, entry into the city is often considered relatively easy. As long as one has a family member or friend who can act as a ‘sponsor’ to vouch for their visit, a Filipino can first travel to Dubai on a tourist visa. Once in Dubai, the search for employment (and therefore the longer work visa) begins. According to the 2019 figures released by the Philippine government, for instance, the OFW population in the UAE remains as the second biggest in the Middle East (PSA, 2020).

It is not just migrant workers who have sought to strike it big in Dubai, however. Various companies have spent significant amounts of money to hold spectacular events and exhibits to draw the attention of potential migrant clients. For instance, Nina, ³ an experienced HR manager, remembers that as early as 2000, Philippine real estate developers were already vying for a strong foothold in the OFW market in Dubai and the rest of the Middle East. When Nina was recruited to be sales manager in 2019, she recalls this period as already the ‘start of difficulties’. In her assessment, competition amongst real estate developers has grown very tough over the years and the market in Dubai for Philippine condominiums has been steadily shrinking. Nina shared:

[Real estate developers] were very optimistic about the market because there are 6 million Filipinos here. But I have to be very blunt too: I don’t think they have asked the limitation or the capacity of the individual to purchase investments.

Referring to the general financial standing of most Filipino workers in Dubai, Nina admits to some reservations regarding the aggressive efforts to sell real estate properties to Filipino migrant workers in the Middle East. Due to the highly hierarchized labour system that has kept many racialized migrant workers in certain jobs (Ewers and Dicce, 2016), Filipinos in Dubai have mostly occupied technical, service and retail positions despite most having attained college degrees and professional experience in the Philippines. Sales agents therefore generally expect that Filipinos in Dubai are not only most likely to buy cheaper and therefore smaller condominium units; they also expect that OFWs are only able to do so through the pre-payment arrangement developed by real estate companies discussed above. One major doubt shared by sales agents, for instance, is whether their OFW buyers would eventually be approved for a Philippine bank loan after the years of paying their down payments. ⁴

Despite these concrete and challenging barriers for OFWs in Dubai, however, the real estate sector kept their sights on the Filipino population in the Middle East prior to and during the pandemic. When pre-selling condominiums plummeted by 53% by the end of 2020, for example, global real estate consultants advised the sector to focus on the region as it remained as one of the highest remittance senders (Bondoc, 2021). Companies turned to their pool of international sales agents to keep condominium sales afloat particularly in cities such as Dubai and drew upon the common industry practice of sending agents as tourists to different locations (i.e. not as registered overseas Filipino workers). This practice helps companies save on cost as they do not pay for any health or travel insurance for their agents. Also, with sales agents mostly relying on friends and family when they are abroad, companies only provide the minimal monthly allowance for workers to sustain their work. When the pandemic hit, this brought a different set of advantages for the companies. Since travelling sales agents were considered as ‘tourists’, they evaded the massive halt of overseas Filipino worker deployment in the Philippines. They also managed to enter Dubai when its borders remained relatively open to tourists for a certain period during the pandemic. Nina estimates that one company alone sent around 300 agents to Dubai in 2021: ‘All of them are here. You will come across them at every street corner. All of them are hanging out there – in Al Rigga. In Satwa. [Developers] released them here, all with tourist visas!’ And finally, companies also could count upon the many agents who got stuck in Dubai due to shutdowns in airline operations. When I met Julie, an experienced international sales marketing manager, she shared that she and her team of sales agents had already been in Dubai for 5 months instead of the 1 month they intended. With no other choice but to continue working, many like her did not receive extra support from their companies, but rather stayed with friends and family for free in order to meet their sales quotas.

It was not only from this labour force’s mobility that the Philippine real estate sector benefited. Although they work under short term contracts (like sales agents based in Manila), international sales agents work under a different set of pressures. Jun, a young sales agent based in Manila explained. He considered moving to the international sales division months prior to our conversation, but he remained apprehensive of this idea. First, he is unsure of taking on a sales quota that is triple his current quota as a local sales agent. Second, he believes that, although the additional funds international sales agents receive could be viewed as added ‘perks’ to the job, the terms and conditions that come along with it are simply ‘too heavy’. He illustrates:

They will give you a budget, and then they will deploy you to the UAE. They’ll give you PHP 400,000 and if you don’t meet your quota of 16 units a month, they will subtract that 400,000 PHP from your commission. If you don’t sell enough, you have to return that amount!

Here, Jun clarifies that international sales agents essentially pay for their own travel expenses with what could be considered as only a ‘cash advance’ from the commission an agent would make. Because this ‘budget’ includes expenses for accommodation and other costs used to support sales presentations and the like, sales agents need to manage this amount very carefully lest they be at risk of going over their budget. This, he adds, is why some international agents have been rumoured to abscond with the ‘cash advance’; if sales agents do not meet their sales quotas, they will be required to return the same amount to the developers. ⁵ Finally, Jun asserts that OFW sales do not always guarantee the rumoured high commissions. Because commissions rests on the consistency of payments made by the OFW, sales agents stand to lose a portion of their commissions when OFWs stop paying by choice or to some unforeseen circumstance.

Developers heavily relied on international sales agents who were not only hard pressed to meet their sales quotas but who had limited choice but to adapt to the new conditions presented by the pandemic. Julie, an experienced international sales agent, recalls: ‘In 2019, it was really easy. Of course, we still have the market now, but it’s not like last time. Last time, I hit my target after two weeks’. Lockdowns in Dubai impeded in person meetings and sales presentations, but as one interviewee noted, the crisis was still deemed by the real estate developers as an opportunity: ‘[Our company] told us that the [pandemic] is not an obstacle . . . We need to adapt. If we don’t, then we should just resign’. Thus, while Philippine-based experts and real estate consultants were still discussing how the pandemic shed light on the need for the industry to digitize their operations (Valdez, 2020), sales agents, on their own, were learning and trying to master online platforms to contact, meet and hopefully close the deal with their clients in Dubai. Marlon, a sales agent who was stuck in the city with his team for 3 months, admitted that this transition was not without its complications. Though others simply described the current situation in Dubai as ‘slower’ than usual, Marlon was more forthcoming regarding the extent of sales losses during this period:

The reality is sales are down here in Dubai. Many lost their jobs or got their wages cut. Some lost up to 40% of their salaries. Of course, they will first pay for their basic needs or send money to the Philippines. Sales are down 50%, and people are scared to invest.

He himself resorted to doing the extra work of making online videos just to keep up with his clients’ numerous queries: ‘At first, I answered their questions, but I realized how tiring it was. I was giving them the same responses . . . The videos helped a lot during the pandemic because everyone is online’. But, according to him, there were also some agents who had difficulty in keeping up: ‘Of course, the agents who are used to old school way of selling found it very difficult to adjust . . . But, we don’t have a choice but to focus on selling. We really need to make most of our time here!’

This section showed how developers depended on their international sales agents in cities like Dubai to continue selling condominium units to OFWs as the real estate market continued to shrink in the Philippines. Developers ensured that migrant capital was still flowing during a pandemic due to the work of low-paid sales agents put under pressure to meet their sales quotas, avoid debt and earn commissions in turn. They also hedged risk as sales agents travelled to and stayed in Dubai at their own cost and of their friends’ and families’. Lastly, the flexibility of companies’ labour structures enabled companies to absorb the unemployed, thus further expanding their sales labour force during the pandemic. When Philippine local unemployment went up to 8.7% in the beginning of 2021 (Simeon, 2021), real estate companies were one of the few, if not the only sector, ‘hiring’ and exporting new workers during the pandemic. Gary, a teacher, performing artist and father who lost all streams of income due to the pandemic was one of those who applied. Gary had no sales experience, but the monthly allowance was too hard to pass up. He wished to stay in the Philippines, but was advised against it. One interviewee explained why: ‘With our current situation [in the Philippines] right now, Filipinos here are struggling. Those who have money are clearly outside the country . . . So, if you want to sell, don’t do it here . . . Money here is for food and not for [real estate investment].’ Thus, Gary eventually agreed to being ‘deployed’ with this promise: ‘My boss assured me. There’s a lot of pressure in sales, but if you make it, there could also be big returns’.

Bringing community leaders into the fold

As in other BoP initiatives, international sales agents like Gary are advised to immediately mobilize their first line of personal contacts who can then introduce them to as many OFWs as possible. Yet, the fact was many OFWs in Dubai were also struggling, and the competition was getting stiff. To make oneself stand out from the rest and regain the trust of potential clients became an absolute necessity if one wished to make a sale. In this section, I explore how one real estate company mobilized its pool of international sales agents to mitigate this predicament. I focus on how select community leaders who have gained some level of influence and recognition from within the Filipino overseas worker community in Dubai were contracted to become part of their sales labour infrastructure. These community leaders, in return, were promised a percentage of the sales commission if an international sales agent made a sale through the community leader’s work. Although these community leaders were not officially hired as sales agents, they nonetheless acted as ‘marketing partners’ who did not necessarily directly refer clients to sales agents. Instead, through what they often referred to as their advocacy work, they created openings through which OFWs could consider the possibility of purchasing a condominium. As well as restore faith in the idea of real estate as an investment, their ‘educational’ or ‘motivational talks’ (sponsored by real estate developers) helped to rehabilitate the negative connotations that sales agents and real estate may have acquired.

Over the years, certain Filipino individuals have gained local reputations in Dubai as not only successful professionals in their respective fields, but also as prominent members of the Filipino community through their advocacy work with and alongside different Filipino organizations (Hosoda, 2013, 2016). From within this group of ‘community leaders’, sales agents thought to partner with a growing subgroup that includes registered financial planners, entrepreneurs and investors who are often asked to share either financial advice or endorse the idea of entrepreneurship and investments to their OFW audience. This was strategic as these community leaders were thought to already have a certain following. With sales presentations moving online, community leaders could easily invite their social networks and draw in a sizeable crowd with whom sales agents could later connect. By presenting financial advice considered apt for the current moment of the pandemic, community leaders could also help position real estate as one avenue through which OFWs can recover from the financial crises they are experiencing.

Though official numbers of unemployment were not released by the UAE government, community leaders with whom I spoke often shared that they are aware of the serious job losses and wage cuts experienced by many OFWs. It is from this shared experience or position of empathy that community leaders were able to impress the purported benefits of real estate as investment for OFWs. Vince, a certified accountant, corporate financial analyst and community financial literacy advocate in Dubai, reiterated that with or without the pandemic, retirement or a return to the Philippines would simply be inevitable for each Filipino migrant worker in the Middle East (given the difficulty of obtaining permanent resident status). Therefore, investment in real estate can provide a migrant returnee with means to earn a living, if and when they return to the Philippines. He shares the following to illustrate this point:

I know a lot of Filipinos who are financially savvy, 5-6 units then they’re living off the [rental] income!

When they were working here in Dubai, they squeezed their salary to finish paying off their condo units. So, they now have 6 assets they can rent out for 30,000 PHP a month. You can survive [using]that, and you’re not doing anything! That’s very attractive for Filipinos. Imagine she’s already a doña, ⁶ and she receives rent every month. All of that. At the same time, if the properties are already income earning and if for some reason you need money, you can sell your condominium!

If Vince reminds potential clients of the purported value of real estate investments for migrant workers, other community leaders reiterate not only the economic value, but also of the spiritual and moral value, in investing itself. Similar to Vince, Roy has built a local reputation from his success as a corporate professional, entrepreneur and motivational speaker in Dubai. Thus, during his online talks from which he was also paid with commissions, Roy often embodied the struggling but resilient entrepreneur, as he too experienced significant financial losses during the pandemic. His approach, according to him, is unique. Roy’s first 10–15 minutes with OFWs involves a type of messaging, most congruous with the spiritual and cultural discourse called the prosperity gospel (Medina and Cornelio, 2021). Prior to achieving any level of success with their investments, Roy insists that OFWs must first acquire an ‘abundant’ and ‘grateful’ mindset. He adds:

People are lost. If before they were lost, all the more, now . . . [I tell them,] if you are not sick, you need to be grateful. If your family is okay, if you lost part of your wages, but you at least still have a job, you need to be grateful.

For Roy, reminding the OFW of their ‘blessings’ amidst a global pandemic puts them in a position to consider investment as a reciprocal act of gratitude. Doing so also helps frame the subsequent payments that OFWs need to make as something they need to prepare for and remain steadfast on. It is only when OFWs become truly aligned with such principles, Roy argues, that they can look forward to the point of payment completion and ownership of the condominium unit as the greatest reward for both their faith and hard work.

Aside from preparing potential OFW investors with the right ‘mindset’ to listen to an agent’s sales pitch, community leaders like Roy and Vince also assisted by allaying some of OFWs’ misgivings with regards to dealing with sales agents. For instance, Vince’s strongly recommended a stance of fearlessness, which he believes could also be applied here. During his talks and consults with OFWs, Vince strongly suggests that OFWs recognize and ready themselves for the attendant risks involved in investing. According to him, OFWs can do the following: First, they must always have an emergency fund that will cover their monthly payments in the event of future job loss. Second, OFWs must also be careful of being ‘overaggressive’ by properly assessing their capacity to pay before taking multiple units for investment. And finally, they must also empower themselves and exercise ‘due diligence’ given that sales agents are also ‘only doing their jobs’. That is, OFWs should already expect that numerous sales agents would present them with only the ‘rosy picture’ to quickly gain their commissions. Though, at first glance, this acknowledgement of the fact might appear as a way to deter OFWs from investing, it is important to note that it works to redirect OFWs towards the trusted sales agents and the real estate developers they ‘partner’ with. Using himself as reliable test case, Vince often used his own story of investment to lend credence to his advice. He shares that when he himself signed up with a sales agent for a condominium investment during the pandemic (some of which was paid with his commissions as speaker), his decision was a result of a calculated and rational decision as opposed to an emotional one. For him, location was key, and so was the credibility and ‘name’ of the developer: ‘[This developer] has a name to protect. They won’t do anything stupid to destroy the brand that took centuries for them to build . . . Otherwise, it will destroy them!’

The language of advocacy which community leaders helped mobilize during this critical sales period proved quite effective and a few major real estate developers tried to infuse its sales ranks with it. After doing a few online talks for OFWs, two major real estate developers approached Roy to train sales agents who were deemed in need of special help during this challenging period. Prior to the pandemic, one interviewee and former real estate agent in Dubai remembers that the occasional sales training/workshop in Manila was perhaps the only thing that her company spent money on. Under the very different set of circumstances brought by the pandemic, however, she believes this training has been quite limited. In Roy’s opinion, circulating ‘horror stories about agents and real estate’ have caused significant damage over the years. Thus, sales agents need a different kind of training especially if they are going to sell to OFWs in Dubai. In keeping with his prosperity gospel-inspired strategy, he therefore implored sales agents in his workshops to ‘stop selling and start serving’:

Build a relationship rather than a portfolio of sellers. Do you want enemies because you’re not giving the correct advice to people? Or do you want friends whom you helped in acquiring a house or condo? The latter certainly feels better!

Roy strongly believes that his work of teaching sales agents how to serve people helped sales teams secure more clients in the 2 years that he has served in this capacity. He won’t reveal the exact sales figures or the total amount of commissions he received, but the ripple effects of his work can be seen in the ways in which one major real estate developer and its agents have begun framing the work that they do. For example, sales agents from this developer use ‘We are the Good Guys’ as the company’s tagline in their promotional adverts. In accord with this good guy framing, one agent therefore identifies herself to her potential buyers as first and foremost a ‘consultative seller’ with a much nobler intention than to earn commissions: ‘My advocacy is to help. Of course, yes, reach my quota, but what we do here is financial literacy’. Financial literacy, for this sales agent and her team means teaching OFWs how purchasing real estate during the pandemic could be an ‘investment’.

This section showed how real estate companies’ sales infrastructures extend wider into their markets by recruiting the likes of Vince and Roy who served as entry points to already built networks and spaces forged around migrant community building, advocacy, even spirituality. During the pandemic, it was the ‘marketing partners’ who made inroads and expanded sales agents’ social networks, soothed OFW anxieties towards real estate investment and helped reframe real estate sales agents’ somewhat stained reputations into a nobler profession. And despite claiming distance from the act of ‘actually selling’ condominium units to OFWs, their close association with real estate developers, through their sponsored speaking engagements and public appearances, worked as tacit endorsement for the specific sales agents and real estate developer they partner with. In the following section, I focus on how these sales infrastructures proved malleable enough to not only recruit community leaders; they also enlisted potential OFW investors as marketing partners.

2 for 1: OFWs as investors/marketing partners

Slightly different from the community leaders asked to speak, motivate, endorse prior to sales presentations, another type of ‘marketing partner’ was recruited into the pool of those working in real estate during the pandemic. According to the sales agents who recruited them, their only task is to connect a sales agent with the potential client. Hence, if the sales agent closes the sale, marketing partners are promised to receive a 1%–2% commission out of the sales agents’ commission in return. Because working as marketing partner is purportedly easy, many sales agents also attempted to recruit OFWs by framing it as an ‘opportunity’ to have some part time work, a ‘side hustle’ or an avenue for ‘passive income’.

During the time of research, however, OFWs were not simply turning to real estate as a ‘side hustle’; OFWs considered working as marketing partner as a means to survive the pandemic. In the case of James, he was hoping to augment his reduced wages on the one hand. On the other, he was also preparing for the event of a future layoff, something that, for him, was proven to be a real possibility by the pandemic. He first travelled to Dubai in 2014 as a tourist and was later encouraged to stay by a family member. Despite being a trained nurse from the Philippines, James still had trouble finding work in the health sector of Dubai. He ended up working as a data processor in the banking industry. He has been with his company for 6 years when the pandemic hit, but James still did not feel any safer. He grew extremely worried that he might lose his job. So, when lay-offs in his bank started, an invitation from a close friend became hard to resist:

It’s so hard to look for a new job these days. If you are laid off, you really need to look for a way to pay off your bills. This is especially true if like me, you’re working overseas. There’s nothing free here. Everything has a price tag, and you have to sustain your living!

James shared that he had tried working part time in real estate before. At the time of our interview, he was working for two real estate companies, instead of one. First, he thought working for two will alleviate his financial concerns, but he shared: ‘It’s been really difficult these days. Everyone is scared to invest’.

James’ story illustrates how OFWs could get pulled into such labour arrangements. Apart from its seeming potential to be a good ‘side hustle’ for many OFWs, the malleability of the labour arrangements and commission breakdowns in the system seem to offer some reprieve to the many who needed work and a source of income during a period of crisis, no matter how small and risky. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that the benefits of having an expanded pool of sales workers outweigh what OFWs and other marketing partners glean from this arrangement. Since real estate companies were free from any responsibility for these workers, marketing partners like James took on several risks in the hopes of earning commission. OFW marketing partners technically work for their friend or personal contact (and not the companies) to whom they pass on the sale. In the best of circumstances, they receive commissions due them. But unless marketing partners become sales agents and go through the process of acquiring their official accreditation, their future commissions would always be at risk since they do not have any basis to file a legal case if the expected commissions do not materialize. Real estate commissions for those ‘down the line’ in the network do not always meet the expectations of marketing partners. Aside from being significantly smaller than one would hope (‘Sometimes you’ll just receive 0.5% commission!’), marketing partners’ commissions are dependent upon the down payments made by their OFW clients. James remembers companies used to release commissions only once the down payment is finished. A welcome change has been that of some developers are now releasing commissions when an OFW buyer completes a certain percentage of the total down payment, but the pandemic has made earning enough from commissions less of a guarantee. James surmises that if a marketing partner wants to get their commissions as soon as possible: ‘You need to find a buyer who is able to complete their down payment immediately . . . This is difficult now. OFWs, of course, don’t want to let go of their money because of the situation’.

Despite the precarious nature of work in Dubai, another reason why some OFWs may decide to take on work for real estate companies is their own debt, not just with Philippine banks but also with the real estate company in the form of down payments owed. Prospective marketing partners are encouraged to become investors. Marie from the previous section explains the reason behind this is partially out of genuine concern for the OFW:

We give them a lecture first [before they start working], why they and their friends need to invest. Because as you know, if you’re an OFW, you tend to spend it all. When you go home to the Philippines, you won’t have any income. Then, it becomes too late. OFWs think they can depend on those they helped before, but you know, those people won’t!

Purchasing a condominium is also a sales strategy. Most sales agents hold the belief that if future marketing partners become investors, this would help marketing partners since they have themselves as a great example or model for their potential clients. Such was the case with James; with a real estate property purchased when he began work as marketing partner still left to be paid off with the bank, he remains tethered to keep working as marketing partner. Further, during the pandemic, OFWs who wished to purchase a condominium were also offered the chance to work as marketing partner. Although several companies offered discounts or promotions to entice buyers, the reality was most OFWs began seriously doubting their abilities to keep paying off their condominium units. What helped convinced them otherwise was the chance to work as marketing partner. For instance, Linda, a young single mother, shares that when a friend of a friend offered her an opportunity to invest in 2021, she wanted to grab the opportunity to pass something on to her 10-year old daughter. However, when we spoke, the school where she teaches, after letting her go due to the pandemic and then re-hiring her, still has not paid her and the other employees. Nonetheless, she was convinced to sign up to purchase a condominium:

I was told that once I become a buyer, I can also be a marketing partner. If you work as marketing partner, you’ll have a commission. Your commission will help with your down payment. So, at least I can save my 800 dirhams. If I’m just a buyer, it’s just too heavy for me . . . If I earn a commission, that’s how much, right? So, I said, okay I’ll try! 2 years or a year. At least, what I have to pay for my down payment will be reduced!

With Linda having already signed the contract and with no savings in the bank, a lot is riding on her work as marketing agent. On the account of her hoping that the condominium unit she would later own and generate rental income for her and daughter in the future, she must first ensure that she finish paying the down payment in the next 2 years. She shares this has led to her feeling extreme pressure: ‘I really want to jump off the Burj Khalifa, you know? This is why I’m going into different businesses. Because I simply can’t do it anymore!’ To cope with this high-pressure situation, Linda has thus decided to sell makeup online on top of real estate to grow her social network further – something that can help either ‘business’, but ideally both. As expected, she has also taken the advice given to her by her sales agent; her partner and other family members are helping her to find clients: ‘I told them to find me the nurses, the engineers, and the professional OFWs. They’re the ones who can pay for real estate’.

This section aimed to show that due to highly flexible nature of the real estate industry’s sales labour force and the lenient enforcement of regulations on accreditation outside the Philippines, real estate companies are able to draw in OFWs as their marketing partners. The specific context within which many OFWs in Dubai has decided to take up the work of marketing partner, however, belies the oft stated assumption regarding why people go into sales work. As opposed to the desire to simply accumulate as much commission as possible, there are many who are pressed to earn and use their commission as either means to survive or pay off their longstanding and accruing debts. Alongside this research finding is the way in which the industry’s sales labour infrastructure could be viewed as a kind of self-replenishing system: as OFWs sign up for their condominiums ‘investments’, they too become potential members of this labour force, even more beholden to keep working for the same company they are indebted to.

Conclusion

This article aims to expand analyses and critique of the Philippine real estate industry by attending to the multiple kinds of labour undergirding it. Specifically, it demonstrates the significant contribution of numerous sales agents who travel abroad, connect with their social networks and recruit other agents – on top of the conventional duties of real estate agents. At first glance, these agents are perceived to be independent, highly mobile and in charge of their own success and fortune. However, here I suggest that it is only in situating their work within the unique labour arrangements of the Philippine real estate industry that a different picture could emerge. In a context of loose state regulations governing worker protection, sales labour and even of migrant labour export itself, major Philippine real estate developers secure lower and middle income OFW investors by utilizing the labour of a highly flexible and precarious pool of workers. During the pandemic, I argue, developers used this strategy to avert crisis and further losses by deploying sales agents abroad who kept sales afloat by entering migrant spaces of advocacy and informal work where OFWs, in addition to being potential ‘investors’, could be recruited as ‘marketing partners’. Particularly in places such as Dubai wherein ownership of condominium properties might feel more like a remote possibility than an attainable reality for most OFWs, this article asserts that sales labour does not only serve as mechanism to capture migrant remittances, it also works to enrol OFWs’ marketing and living labours.

In drawing attention to this interdependent and self-replenishing system, this article builds on the growing body of scholarly analyses that focuses on the variegated ways in which developers and other real estate actors have specifically sought out migrant workers for their capital or remittances. In particular, inspired by Aulakh and Kelly (2020), crosscutting analyses was conducted in order to modestly contribute, theoretically and empirically, to both scholarly discussions of real estate capital and mobile labour. By foregrounding sales agents’ and migrant workers’ narratives, we see how, in addition to contributing remittances and their monthly downpayments, precarious mobile workers mobilize their social networks, market, sell and care for their debts in the hopes that they might cash in on or share in some of the profits of big Philippine real estate developers. Shedding light on migrant social relations and networks offer up new avenues for future research as well. Aside from familial dynamics that tend to get reconfigured or negotiated as investment decisions and debt commitments are maintained over time, the narratives I highlight hint at the forging of new norms, practices and relationships within various Filipino migrant communities as consequence of being ‘targeted’ by the real estate industry. Second, as the preliminary discussion on community leaders above suggests, the ‘Dubai real estate market’ did not exist prior to the strategic forays of developers. Rather, it is continuously being made and remade by developers, their agents and by OFWs themselves. Thus, the particularities of how sales labour is operationalized and takes effect in Dubai, therefore, could also inspire future examinations of real estate market making in other places. Finally, this article underscores the need to retain critical interest in the ways in which real estate industries will continue to rely on specific kinds of sales labour such as the precarious intermediations I show here and to what ends. This might mean significant impact not only on future investors from ‘emerging’ markets such as in the Philippines but also for future sales agents/marketing partners. For instance, inasmuch as the pandemic exacerbated some of the difficulties of sales work, it also helped usher in transformations within the real estate industry. According to one marketing manager interviewed, the digitization of some of the leading developers’ infrastructures might mean a shift towards more in-house customer support agents and fewer sales agents in the field. Though this will not necessarily entail a steep decline in companies’ sales labour requirements, it will likely alter the nature of work and potential profitability for sales agents. This article showed that the commission economy that sustains the Philippine real estate industry, despite providing a form of financial reward to sales agents and marketing partners, is highly uneven, unreliable and thus, unable to fully support the workers and their lives. And, yet many will still consider working as sales agent or as marketing partner a viable option for surviving and living with the pandemic’s aftermath. As long as OFW futures are not secure abroad nor in the Philippines, the idea of real estate as investment and the commission-based work that could purportedly help actualize it will continue to draw them in. So much so that real estate is viewed as providing the most stability of all. In the words of James: ‘Right now, I need the money. In future, real estate could be my “fall back” because real estate will always be there. It will not fall’.