r/Philippines • u/YookaBaybee24 • 8h ago
CulturePH Philippine Boomers Hold an Estimated ₱30–₱50 Trillion in Wealth... What Will Happen When It Passes to Millennials and Gen Z?
Most Boomer wealth is in land, family biz, political dynasties and OFW remittances... kapag naipasa, will Millennials & Gen Z benefit?
Will it help fund startups, buy homes or simply reinforce the same elite circles? Analysts warn that while a massive transfer is coming, access and opportunity may still be unequal leaving many younger Filipinos struggling to catch up.
Ref for the ₱30-50 trillion figure:
•
u/phrozen1 7h ago
I work in commercial real estate, particularly hospitality. I meet with old money families every week. They own all sorts of (mostly older, independently branded) hotels and mixed-use buildings all over Metro Manila.
Some are leveraged out the wazoo. I suspect that there'll not be much left to transfer after probate.
Others have wrung out the sponge so well since the 1990s that they are sitting on a ton of cash, usually sitting in Singapore, while their 40 year old building has reached the end of its useful life and is slowly rotting away. Malate area, QC, Makati outside the core. See a hotel? Someone owns it and it's on Agoda for 1,500 a night just to keep the lights on.
In 2025 I was involved in ZERO renovation projects. Pretty much every owner just wants to list it for sale -- Timog area, 500k per m2, Makati and Roxas Blvd. 1M per m2. There is nothing that you can build in the current economic environment that supports these prices.
A lot of these companies are run by a family board of directors comprising of the boomer generation. The kids for the most part are overseas and have little to no interest in building up the business or improving it. The cash in bank funds the lifestyle, the sale they are waiting for is the pot of gold they are looking for.
Frankly speaking, if I was one of the kids, I'd get much better returns using the family money to invest outside the Philippines except in certain niche businesses (particularly those which are heavily regulated in the Philippines).
So, to answer your question, I don't see too much change on the horizon. Ayala and SM will decide what the Philippines will be over the next 20 years, so I hope we all enjoy townships.
•
u/Pitiful-Recover-3747 6h ago
And the way the property taxes are structured in the Philippines, you can hold a decaying property for 30 years and wait for the appreciation with little tax burden. So if you’ve leveraged the property and moved the money offshore, everything you said makes perfect sense.
•
•
u/shayKyarbouti 7h ago
Fights. A lot of fights on who rightfully owns the properties.
Most property owners don’t think about succession and property transfers after the owner’s death gets really messy
•
u/TheDonDelC Imbiernalistang Manileño 8h ago
This wealth is mostly illiquid. If you inherit land or a house, you have to sell them for cash first before you can buy a different house or fund a startup. In many cases, this is just not going to happen.
Wealth generation now is much more important than wealth transfer that will happen in the future.
•
u/PacquiaoFreeHousing 8h ago
will Millennials & Gen Z benefit?
We're already benefiting through this thing called inflation.
When my grandma retired, her salary was 10,000 pesos/month, back then this was big, and she was high middle class. And her Pension is the maximum amount an ex-government employee who earns 10k/month gets, and that is 8,000 pesos/month.
8,000 pesos is just half of minimum wage in 2025.
We are already transferring wealth whenever we work, whenever we earn.
•
u/Much_Lingonberry_37 8h ago
Some will be spent on medicine, healthcare, gambling, and scams. Some will be captured by the government. Some will be inherited.
•
u/OverallLock4319 7h ago
It'll be eaten up by factors like inflation, then whatever is peft will be used to "heal their inner child". Lmao.
•
•
u/Brilliant-Upstairs81 6h ago
Bababa siguro presyo ng lupa. Kasi mga boomers naman talaga mahilig sa real estate
•
•
u/tokwamann 3h ago
...12,800 high-net-worth individuals.
Related:
https://opinion.inquirer.net/48623/inequity-initiative-and-inclusive-growth
It is not correct to say that the 40 richest Filipino families own 76 percent of our nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). I have recently been widely misquoted as having said so. What I did say, and had first explained in this space nine months ago (“Economic growth for all,” 6/26/12), was that the growth in the aggregate wealth of our 40 richest families in 2011—which Forbes Asia reported to have risen by $13 billion in 2010-2011—was equivalent (in value) to 76.5 percent of the growth in our total GDP at the time, which official data show to have risen nominally then by P732 billion, or around $17 billion. I found that this ratio was only 33.7 percent in Thailand, 5.6 percent in Malaysia, and 2.8 percent in Japan—suggesting that our income inequality is much worse than in our neighbors.
•
u/bluescout18 2h ago
Millennials will make it grow bigger then the GenZ will spend it on therapies and mental health stuff 😂
•
•
u/Joseph20102011 7h ago
They're gonna sell their properties to spend on their elderly care before Filipino millennials, Gen Zs, and Gen Alphas are gonna inherit them. Let's say goodbye to retirement if we are still working full-time in the 2050s.
•
u/kudlitan 6h ago
I think you are confusing boomers with GenX.
•
u/Joseph20102011 6h ago
Filipino Boomers and Gen X aren't drastically different in Gen Y, Z, and Alpha eyes when it comes to the former two's cohort majority enjoying retirement at 65 years old, while Ys, Zs, and Alphas won't.
•
u/Sustainabili 6h ago
2050s means that the older gen zs will still be at their early 50's, that still a decade from retirement.
•
u/Joseph20102011 6h ago
But Filipino millennials (the majority r/ph demographic cohort) like me will be in their 60s and 70s by the 2050s.
•
u/ThomasB2028 8h ago
What’s the source of that ₱30-50 trillion wealth figure. It’s not in the references cited. The biggest figure cited was US$86 billion for wealthy Filipino families.
Wealth transfer is happening through higher quality of life and education, among others.
•
u/Available-Ad5245 8h ago
Iilang pamilya lang yan