Inside Beverly Hills in Philippines, Where Homes Rarely Change Hands

Beverly Hills is known for being home to celebrities and millionaires. A-listers like Brad Pitt and pop stars like Taylor Swift have owned property in the city. The California suburb is known for its palm trees, luxury stores, and million-dollar homes. 

In fact, Beverly Hills Gateway, a neighborhood within the city, is the most expensive place to live in California, where homes cost an average of $22.7 million, per a study released in April by the financial services company CashNetUSA. On average, homes in Beverly Hills are listed for a median price of $6.8 million, per data from real-estate platform Realtor.com. 

I visited California’s Beverly Hills several years ago and was in awe of the glamorous mansions. So when I heard that there’s a high-end neighborhood with the same name in Cebu, an island province in the Philippines, my curiosity was piqued. 

On the drive to Beverly Hills on a recent reporting trip, I saw what other homes in Cebu look like. They were a mix of towering condominiums, family bungalows, and tiny houses built on the side of the road from materials like tin and wood.

Gaining access to the neighborhood was a challenge. Knowing someone who lives there is the only way to enter the suburb. In the Philippines, suburbs are more commonly referred to as subdivisions. 

I reached out to several realtors before finding one who could help me gain access, and who connected me with another realtor who could show me around. But first, we needed to get past the guard posts and a handful of security guards who scanned every car that drove in. 

Sitting in the back seat of the first real-estate agent’s car, the guards had a lot of questions — who we knew, where we were going, and how long were going to be there. 

The neighborhood is located 10 minutes away from Cebu’s city center and the homes are built into a steep hillside that offers panoramic views of the city. The location reminded me of the Korean film “Parasite,” which showcases a wealthy family’s house in a hilltop neighborhood of Seoul.

There were barely any people out on the streets in the middle of the day, but I did spot a handful of workers maintaining the tropical trees and plants that dotted the wide, paved roads.

Many of the large, gated mansions were at least partially obscured from sight by foliage. The homes struck a stark contrast to the makeshift homes and tiny roadside shacks in Pasil, a neighborhood just five miles south of Beverly Hills, where I had spent the previous day.

Balaga told me the cheapest home on the market right now in the neighborhood costs 52 million pesos, or around $915,000. It is one of two properties that were listed for sale at the time of my visit.

Balaga told me homes in Beverly Hills are rarely sold to outsiders, as many who live there are regarded as the “Old Money” of Cebu. And when they do go on sale, the price is often in the millions, Balaga said, adding that homes in the neighborhood are typically listed for at least 100 million pesos, or $1.75 million. For comparison, the median price of homes in Cebu City is listed at $141,270, per data by the Urban Land Institute. 

“Some owners initially wanted to sell their homes, but changed their mind during the pandemic,” Balaga said about Beverly Hills, adding that residents usually only sell to people they know.

Balaga said many of the people who live in the neighborhood made their wealth in industries like retail, construction, and hospitality.

For example, the Gaisano, a Chinese-Filipino family that owns a chain of malls in the Visayas and Mindanao islands, once lived in the neighborhood, Balaga said. Another wealthy…