Vista Land & Lifescapes, Inc. reported that it is on track to meet its financial targets for the year even though its consolidated net income for the first nine months dropped by 25 percent to P1.59 billion from P2.22 billion in the same period last year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Wednesday, Vista Land said revenue from real estate sales dipped 8 percent to P7.17 billion from P7.8 billion in same period last year.

“This was primarily attributable to the decline in the sales take up starting third quarter of 2008, where most of the revenue for the nine months of 2009 came from, and the effect of the extension of the payment period for the buyer’s equity from 12 months to 18 months which was also introduce last year.

Vista Land also recorded a non-recurring loss on settlement amounting to P327 million in the in 2009 as a result of Camella Homes’ partial settlement of its foreign currency denominated obligation. The settlement was done in the second quarter of the year.

The firm said that its management will be recommending to its board the declaration of a cash dividend of about three centavos per share within the fourth quarter.

“Our third quarter results were well within our expectations, although I believe we could have done slightly better had it not been for Typhoon Ondoy,” said Vista Land senior vice president for finance Ricardo Tan, Jr.

He noted that “our real time sales for the third quarter was above P4 billion, confirming that consumer confidence remains strong. We expect to see even better sales performance in the fourth quarter as we have launched more projects over the last few months.”

Vista Land has successfully launched six projects in the third quarter in the Mega Manila area - valued at about P5 billion.

“The property sector continues to gain momentum and although we are still somewhat cautious, we believe the industry is on a growth path for the next few years,” Tan said.