The Quick Read
- Reelist8, the team behind PropertyAuctions.ph, placed among the Top 16 National Finalists at the 2026 Presidential Filipinnovation Awards, chosen from more than 130 entries nationwide.
- A PFA judge singled out the property auction platform as strong enough to compete with a tech pitch, a notable comment for a real estate product.
- The company is backed by the Department of Science and Technology and mentored through the Asian Institute of Management’s Dado Banatao Incubator, giving the recognition institutional weight beyond a single event.
- The finalist run caps a year that already included a DOST Startup Grant Fund award, a WIPO-IPOPHL intellectual property support slot, and the public launch of the company’s twin platforms for property auctions and construction cost management.
A Manila Pitch Draws a Pointed Compliment
At the 2026 Presidential Filipinnovation Awards, industrial designer and PFA judge Kenneth Cobonpue told the Reelist8 team their entry was one of the best products he had seen in the competition, adding that it would have held its own even against a tech pitch. Coming from a judge evaluating everything from health devices to agricultural tools, the remark was a specific vote of confidence for a company whose core product is a property auction platform, not a piece of hardware or an app in the conventional sense.
Reelist8 and Reelist8 Property Auctions, the team behind PropertyAuctions.ph, advanced to the PFA’s national finals as one of just 16 finalists chosen from a pool the awarding body counted at more than 130 submissions across the country. The national competition, organized by the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development under the National Innovation Council, is now in its second year and is built to spotlight Filipino innovations with a real shot at commercial scale, not concepts still on paper.
The Property Auction Platform Behind the Pitch
PropertyAuctions.ph is built around a straightforward premise. Bank foreclosures and privately listed properties across the Philippines, some priced well below market, are put up for live online bidding, with buyers watching and competing in real time from their phones rather than showing up to an in-person auction hall. The company positions it as the first platform in the country to run property auctions this way, pairing the auction mechanic with AI tools meant to surface undervalued listings and cut down the guesswork that usually comes with buying foreclosed real estate.
The property auction platform sits alongside a second Reelist8 product, Buildin, which turns floor plans into cost estimates for contractors and designers. Together they form the company’s answer to two separate but related problems in Philippine housing: finding a property at a fair price, and knowing what it will actually cost to build or renovate once it is bought. The PFA entry that reached the national finals was built specifically around the property auction platform’s role in expanding access to homeownership, framed by the company as a hybrid auction model designed for buyers who would otherwise be priced out of the traditional market.
Sixteen Finalists, More Than 130 Entries
Getting to the national round meant clearing a subnational competition first. The PFA groups applicants into four geographic clusters, National Capital Region, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, with a maximum of four finalists advancing from each. Reelist8 was one of four NCR finalists selected during that region’s judging round, held around National Innovation Day in April 2026, before moving on to face finalists from the other three clusters at the national level.
That structure means Reelist8’s entry was not just competing against other real estate products. It was measured against finalists working in disaster resilience, healthcare devices, and agricultural technology, all evaluated on the same three criteria: originality and technical execution, readiness for commercial deployment, and potential impact. Five finalists ultimately received the full Presidential Filipinnovation Award and a government grant. Reelist8 did not place among them, a distinction the company has been straightforward about in its own public announcement of the result.
Mentors Behind the Milestone
Reelist8 credited two people directly for helping shape its pitch: Prim Paypon, Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Management’s Dado Banatao Incubator, and Atty. Jocs Dilag, who the company says stepped in a day before the finals to help refine how the story was told. Paypon’s involvement is not a one-off. Reelist8 is separately enrolled in AIM-DBI’s THINCOHORT 2026-2027 program, a structured track meant to help proptech companies grow past their early stage, which puts the mentor credit in the context of an ongoing relationship rather than a single piece of pre-event coaching.
The finalist placement also lands in the middle of a fuller run of institutional recognition for the company. Reelist8 has been named a beneficiary of the WIPO-IPOPHL Inventor Assistance Program, which provides pro-bono intellectual property support, and previously secured backing through the DOST Startup Grant Fund. Co-founders Marianne Dela Cruz and Borj de Borja formally introduced the company’s full platform suite, the property auction platform and Buildin together, at a public launch event in Makati in November 2025, positioning both products as already operating rather than still in development.
A Platform Built Around Access, Not Just Auctions
What separates this finalist run from a typical startup award mention is that the property auction platform it recognized is already processing real transactions, not pitching a concept. The company has pointed to a completed sale run entirely through the platform as proof the auction model works outside of a demo environment. For a country where affordable housing access remains a persistent gap, a judge willing to compare a property auction to a tech product is a specific kind of validation, one earned in a room full of engineers, doctors, and agricultural innovators rather than other real estate players.
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