Your first days in your home in the Philippines

First of all - DO NOT decide to move to the Philippines without first visiting and spending time in the area(s) that you are interested in settling into. For my wife and I, we visited Cagayan de Oro many times over the years, though she hadn't lived here since the early 70's. We met in Taipei in 1983 and married a year later.

When it was clear that we were going to retire here, we looked at a lot of houses but none of them met our expectations: too small, not enough closet space, etc. So we decided to buy a lot in a gated community and have our home built to our requirements. We did rent a condo for longer than we wanted to (pandemic).

Then it got interesting. The title for the land was missing the last page and it took many months to get a new title issued into my wife's name. Our building contractor diverted our funds to another project (so she says) and walked away from the project, so we have been in court periodically for 3 years trying to get our money back. We hired another contractor to finish the work and his team was great.

So the moral of the story: Have someone on the ground that you trust, and knows how to get things done through all the various government agencies. And always have lots of PATIENCE.

For expats looking to move here: There is a ton of new condo construction happening, but it's all very small units (25-35 sqm / 250-350 sqft) for a lot of money. I suggest looking for land a bit outside the cities and building what you want. You'll save a lot of money and be happier.

First of all - DO NOT decide to move to the Philippines without first visiting and spending time in the area(s) that you are interested in settling into. For my wife and I, we visited Cagayan de Oro many times over the years, though she hadn't lived here since the early 70's. We met in Taipei in 1983 and married a year later.
When it was clear that we were going to retire here, we looked at a lot of houses but none of them met our expectations: too small, not enough closet space, etc. So we decided to buy a lot in a gated community and have our home built to our requirements. We did rent a condo for longer than we wanted to (pandemic).

Then it got interesting. The title for the land was missing the last page and it took many months to get a new title issued into my wife's name. Our building contractor diverted our funds to another project (so she says) and walked away from the project, so we have been in court periodically for 3 years trying to get our money back. We hired another contractor to finish the work and his team was great.

So the moral of the story: Have someone on the ground that you trust, and knows how to get things done through all the various government agencies. And always have lots of PATIENCE.

For expats looking to move here: There is a ton of new condo construction happening, but it's all very small units (25-35 sqm / 250-350 sqft) for a lot of money. I suggest looking for land a bit outside the cities and building what you want. You'll save a lot of money and be happier.
-@rcvining

But then again there are many expats who moved here without visiting first, for example Mark Thornton from YT " Every man has a story".

He is very happy here and there are others.

I first visited the Philippines in 2006. On the short flight from Manila to Tacloban I was seated towards the rear of the plane among a group of college kids on a field trip. I told them I was on a 10,000 mile blind date and planned to get engaged if everything worked out. About 20 minutes before landing I went to the CR to freshen up a bit, it had been over 30 hours travel to this point. I believe this is when the college kids formulated a plan. When the plane landed and the front and rear doors were opened I got up and grabbed my carry on from the overhead but all the college kids remained seated, and they were all looking at me? I began to walk towards the open door and they all began to clap their hands! I remember thinking “I'm going to like this place!” As I exited the plane I saw 2 little Filipinas jumping up and down, it was my future wife and her sister.

We planned to someday build a retirement home in the Philippines so in 2009 we bought an 850 sqm property on Biliran Island in a barangay the wife called “home town” since her parents and grandparents were all born there. The property was plenty deep but a bit narrow. In 2014 the adjacent 850 sqm property became available so we bought that and now with 1,700 sqm we had plenty of room to build on.

In early 2020 we decided it was time to build the house so we went looking for an engineer and ended up with a gentleman who attended high school with my wife's sister. He was born and raised in this barangay but he operates out of Cebu. I told him we wanted a 200 sqm, 2 story, 3 bedroom, 3 bath house and all the particulars. He put his architect to work and in a couple months we worked out a design we could all agree on. Construction began in June 2020 and finished 1 year later. My wife's parents, nephews and an uncle oversaw the project plus we had the world's best foreman so everything went very well.

We made our move in July 2021 which involved a 10 day quarantine in Manila and another quarantine at our final destination. We planned it so we would be reunited with our dog at the Tacloban airport after 10 days separation and that worked out. Normally it is required to quarantine at one of these tiny one room row houses but since my wife is related to the Mayor and her aunt works at the municipality we were allowed to quarantine in our new house. We arrived in our driveway the first of August in the back of her brother's L300 van.

We entered the house like kids on Christmas morning and began checking everything. The in law's had us a little table set up in the dining room with some food and baskets of fruit. There was a large poster on the wall to welcome us home. There were a few dozen balikbayan boxes on one side of the living room and in the center was a refrigerator, free standing range with oven, front loading washing machine and a LG 1.5hp split type air conditioner, all to be installed by me. The small bedroom upstairs had a bed and a temporarily installed window air conditioner. We slept very well that night, our incredibly long and difficult journey was near an end.

The first morning we awoke and opened a few balikbayan boxes until I found some tools which allowed me to unbox and install the range, refrigerator and washing machine. We made egg sandwiches for breakfast. I had packed coffee beans, a hand grinder and French press in my checked baggage so I was able to boil water in a pot had a good cup of coffee for a change.

This is a brief summary of how our home in the Philippines went from notion to fruition. I left out one small detail. When we landed in Tacloban my wife was handed the greatest gift or her life, an 8 month old healthy baby boy. She wanted a child from the start but I told her up front that I had a vasectomy. I did promise her I would do everything I could to give her a child. Nothing worked so her younger brother donated a beautiful baby boy who we are now in the process of adopting. We are now 3 months from our 2nd anniversary in the Philippines.

“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.”

@danfinn Thank you for sharing your story

I also had lived in Cdo its a very cool place to live, i agr4ee fully with you you need to see the place. But like me I am adventurer i like doing the things with out planning it turns out better .but I wouldn't advised any one to do that . I have lived in CDO then in Bukidnon you know mountain province are nice. The weather is good and I was pleasantly surprised to find that in the market u can find almost any thing u want to buy all kinds if fish and crabs for a mountain province. YOU know as foreigner its nice to explore the Philippines but you need to have an open mind do not expect the things to be like back in your own country you need to respect their culture even if you don't agree with it .  but

@Moon Dog Thanks for sharing your excellent story. We see so many complaints on this forum - it's nice to learn that others, like me, are happy with their experiences in moving to and living in the Philippines.