Payback depends on doors that stay rented, not on the day the first key is handed over. Illustrative photo.
Short answer: build cost is the part you can pin down. On our 2026 figures a studio door costs about ₱550,000 to ₱910,000 to build, before design, permits, connections and contingency. Whether the building pays for itself depends on the rent your street really supports, the months units sit empty, and what upkeep takes out. Run those three honestly and the payback period is the number that tells you whether to build.
The plan might start with a lot you already own and some savings from years abroad. Four doors, each rented, a monthly income that keeps coming after the salary stops. It can work. What undoes it is budgeting the building like a house and the income like every door is full every month.
Build cost per door comes from AEDO's 2026 figures. Rent, occupancy and operating costs come from you, because they depend on your location.
| Unit type | Typical size | Build cost per door (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Bedspacer or boarding room | 12–16 sqm | ₱220,000–₱380,000 |
| Studio, self-contained | 22–26 sqm | ₱550,000–₱910,000 |
| 1-bedroom | 28–35 sqm | ₱700,000–₱1,225,000 |
These are from our apartment and boarding house cost guide. The big gap between a boarding room and a studio isn't size. It's plumbing. Every self-contained door has its own toilet and kitchen, with the waterproofing and fixtures that come with them. A boarding house shares one toilet block across many rooms.
Our budget guide takes 20 to 30 percent off a total budget before anything is built: design and engineering, permits, utility connections and meter deposits, site works, contingency and basic furnishing. A rental building carries all of those, and one more that owners underestimate: water storage and septic capacity for many occupants rather than one household. Size them properly with the septic tank guide and the water pressure guide.
Mix unit types. A few shared-toilet rooms beside self-contained studios lowers the average cost per door and widens the tenants you can rent to. Build in phases. Design the full building, build the first doors, let the rent fund the rest; our phased building guide covers what phase one must include. Keep it to two storeys. Our cost guide notes a two-storey walk-up is the cheapest configuration per square metre.
Cost per door and per square metre are AEDO's published 2026 rental construction figures. The 20 to 30 percent non-construction share is from AEDO's published budget guide. Rent, occupancy and operating costs in the calculator are your inputs; the defaults are placeholders, not market data.
If the savings behind this build are being earned abroad, the numbers in the calculator only hold if the building gets built to budget without you on site. The usual way a remote rental project loses its return isn't the rent. It's paying for progress nobody checked, then paying again to fix it.
The way to handle it is to settle everything that can be decided on paper before a contractor mobilizes, then check the work against those papers from a distance. Here's how that works with AEDO:
Foreign nationals generally can't own Philippine land except by inheritance. A lease is the usual route: under PD 471, a lease of private land to a foreigner can run up to 25 years, renewable for another 25 by mutual agreement. Settle which ownership path you're relying on with a lawyer before the foundation goes in. See our guide to building as a foreigner and how building from abroad works.
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How much does it cost to build a rental apartment per door in the Philippines?
On AEDO's 2026 figures, a bedspacer or boarding room of 12 to 16 square metres costs about 220,000 to 380,000 pesos to build, a self-contained studio of 22 to 26 square metres about 550,000 to 910,000, and a one-bedroom unit of 28 to 35 square metres about 700,000 to 1,225,000. Those are construction figures. Design, permits, connections, site works and contingency come on top.
What rental yield should I expect?
That depends entirely on the rent your location supports, which is why the calculator asks for your own figure rather than assuming one. Check what comparable units nearby actually rent for, not what they are advertised at, and test the numbers with a realistic vacancy allowance.
Is a boarding house cheaper to build than an apartment?
Per square metre, yes. On AEDO's figures a bare-finish boarding house with shared toilets runs about 18,000 to 24,000 pesos per square metre against 25,000 to 35,000 for a standard self-contained apartment. The difference is plumbing: every self-contained unit adds its own toilet and kitchen, while a boarding house shares one block of toilets across many rooms.
What costs do rental building owners leave out?
The costs that are not construction: design and engineering, permits, utility connections and meter deposits, site works, contingency and basic furnishing. Our budget guide puts those at about 20 to 30 percent of a total house budget. A multi-unit building also needs water storage and septic capacity sized for many occupants, which is easy to underestimate.
Where the figures in this guide come from.
All build costs are AEDO Construction's own 2026 market figures, not a published schedule or a quotation. This guide makes no claim about market rents or returns in any location.
Unit mix, plumbing layout and phasing decide the cost per door before a block is laid.
