The property company founded by Senator Manuel Villar suffered from foreign exchange losses and lower sales of residential houses in the first three months of the year.

These pulled down Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc.'s net income by 22 percent to to P592 million in January to March 2009 from P760 million in the same months a year ago.

In a press briefing, Senator Villar's eldest son and Vista Land's chief finance officer Paolo Villar said, “Some of the slowdown that happened in 2008 is reflective [of the revenues] this year. Yes, there might be a slight decrease in revenues overall.” The company ended 2008 with revenues of P11.6 billion.

Vista Land senior vice president for finance Ricardo Tan Jr. noted, however, that Vista Land's quarterly financial results were well within expectations.

"We anticipated that there would be a weakness in the market environment  this year and we factored this into our internal projections sometime ago," Tan explained.

Excluding forex losses from its debts, the property developer's first quarter core net income was still lower by 19 percent at P630 million compared to the last year's P781 million. This was due to a 6.5 percent decline in revenues from P2.62 billion to P2.45 billion.

For the first quarter, Tan said the company unveiled two major subdivision projects in Mega Manila area valued at about P2 billion. He added that they may speed up project launches in the second quarter.

"The property sector seems to be showing some signs of improvement. In the last two months, we've seen a rebound in sales and we may accelerate project launches during the second quarter. We will, however, continue to closely monitor market conditions and will be ready to react accordingly," he said.

Vista Land has lowered its capital outlay to P7.7 billion this year from P8.3 billion last year, but it said it remains confident about growth prospects this year.

Vista Land is the holding company of four business units, namely, Brittany, Crown Asia, Camella Homes and Communities Philippines.

Villar said the company will will maintain its strategy of selling more low- to middle-income housing units as it continues to face the challenging economic environment.

“It will still be a challenging year and we continue to see a marked slowdown in demand for high-end products. But the prospects remain good for affordable and mid-income,” said Villar.

Twenty eight projects are in the pipeline this year, which are expected to generate about P23 billion in revenues for the company.