Build or Buy a house?

Many will say RENT first to get to know the place, but after that   

1. If you find something you like at wanted location, then it can be much better to BUY, because  in most places its buyers market now. Many sell very cheap.

2. IF you fullffil the demands its max 9000 usd worth if I remember correct.  I  GUESS  for you each if logic, but some arent logic   

coach53 wrote:

Many will say RENT first to get to know the place, but after that   

1. If you find something you like at wanted location, then it can be much better to BUY, because  in most places its buyers market now. Many sell very cheap.

2. IF you fullffil the demands its max 9000 usd worth if I remember correct.  I  GUESS  for you each if logic, but some arent logic   

Thanks!, $9000 per person? Because 3 of us are retiring and will live in Davao.

We decided to buy land and build. Buying the land began over 10 years ago. We bought an 850 sm property and later bought the adjacent property so now it is 1,700 sm which is good sized. I'm a country boy and my wife is a province girl so it is well suited to our needs. fruit trees and vegetable gardens. I have about P1.5 million in the property and was offered P3 million before we broke ground, property is getting expensive.

House construction began last June and it is just about finished. My in-laws live on the back of the property and looked after things since we could not be there. We had some issues with the engineer but the foreman was great and really took care of us. We kept him on to pour the driveway, build me a work shop etc. The barangay is on Biliran Island and it is the home town of my wife's family going back generations. The 3 bedroom, 3 bath 165 sm 2 story house costs me P5.5 million.

We have so far sent 60 extra large balikbayan boxes, 8 - 12 at a time and have never been asked to pay any tax or custom fees. Settlement on our Georgia house is July 20 and our flight is July 22.

May I know your location?Your house cost is in my neighborhood budget.I have a lot in Tagaytay w/c I plan to build a house next year 2022.Thank you.

ingkongjure wrote:

May I know your location?Your house cost is in my neighborhood budget.I have a lot in Tagaytay w/c I plan to build a house next year 2022.Thank you.

We are on Biliran Island which is also Biliran province near Cabucgayan. I will try to link and image or two, if it works there is a mock up of the house we selected and a recent picture of finishing the driveway.

[img][/img][img][/img]

[img][/img]

Moon Dog, Great info from first hand experience. House and property look fantastic and I'm sure you and your wife will enjoy.
Some questions for you if you are ok with that.

The 5.5M cost for the house, did that include septic, water supply/well, power conn, fencing/gates, driveway, Municipal/Barangay fees?

Were there any problems with the contractor/architect/site manager? Material thefts? Scamming in anyway?

Appreciate your time and answers.

BTW. Good luck with the move.

Cheers, Steve.

bigpearl wrote:

Moon Dog, Great info from first hand experience. House and property look fantastic and I'm sure you and your wife will enjoy.
Some questions for you if you are ok with that.

The 5.5M cost for the house, did that include septic, water supply/well, power conn, fencing/gates, driveway, Municipal/Barangay fees?

Were there any problems with the contractor/architect/site manager? Material thefts? Scamming in anyway?

Appreciate your time and answers.

BTW. Good luck with the move.

Cheers, Steve.

Thanks,

It included septic and grease trap and all permits and Municipal/Barangay fees. There is municipal water on the property but it has some sand, an occasional minnow and low pressure at times so I had a well drilled and that cost about P85K. The fence, gates and driveway were not included, don't know the cost off the top of my head, I just paid labor and material. Nanay knows the good masons and they are  probably related to her.

I was scammed out of a little money when someone hacked the engineers email account for a progress billing but I made the engineer pay half and that caused some tension between us. It was the foreman that did us right, he is from Cebu but still living on the property and still on my payroll. A good foreman is key.

There were no thefts or anything like that, it is a low crime area and a somewhat upscale barangay. Nanay and Tatay live behind the house and there is a pack of crazy dogs on the property. I linked a photo on the in-laws house taken from the the 2nd floor terrace. I still have to build them a bungalow and we want a pool, not sure which will be first. Also a pic of the property before they broke ground and a pic of just after breaking ground. All done by hand of course. You can see how high the gate is and how much fill dirt we needed and it was all dumped by the road and carried in by hand in buckets, 47 dump truck loads to get started. We actually misjudged the gate height by 8", the foreman had to raise it when he did the driveway. I'm putting electric openers on the gates so they had to be a certain height.

Looks great....congratulations.

Looks good Moon Dog!!!

What do you anticipate the total cost to be for everything including the lot and pool?

Also how long do you expect the project to take?

I will be building in Tagaytay.

Thanks ~

FortuneFavorsTheBold wrote:

Looks good Moon Dog!!!

What do you anticipate the total cost to be for everything including the lot and pool?

Also how long do you expect the project to take?

I will be building in Tagaytay.

Thanks ~

The house construction began June 15, 2020 and was supposed to be finished this April but Covid delayed things a bit. Electric was turned on today and the folks bought the pig so we're getting close the cutting the ribbon. The house only lacks some stone work around one column and one bedroom window. Stone is on order.

By the time the pool is completed I should have around P8.5 million invested in everything. That includes my work shop (man cave) I'm having built behind the house. I really just wanted something simple for my work shop but Lido (the foreman) don't do simple. It is only a 3m x 4m shop but it has 6 posts and an underground roof drainage system. He made the roof match the house which is nice. I'll have half a million in my shop, including the aircon. I will be afraid to do any actual work in there, might get it dirty.

Shop photos:
[img][/img]

66stryker66 wrote:

coach53 wrote:

2. IF you fullffil the demands its max 9000 usd worth if I remember correct.  I  GUESS  for you each if logic, but some arent logic   

Thanks!, $9000 per person? Because 3 of us are retiring and will live in Davao.

If I remember corect its 9000 us dollars worth.   BUT risk the custom count much higher values than the real vaöies. Some count NEW values at close to garbage things.
I dont know if they count per person or per "unit".   

(I havent bothered to study the law about this, I have spend my time studying business and real estate laws in an expat point of view   

coach53 wrote:

(I havent bothered to study the law about this, I have spend my time studying business and real estate laws in an expat point of view   

Best to study this too.. (just to be aware!)

https://www.rappler.com/corruption-in-the-philippines

Moon Dog wrote:

We decided to buy land and build. Buying the land began over 10 years ago. We bought an 850 sm property and later bought the adjacent property so now it is 1,700 sm which is good sized. I'm a country boy and my wife is a province girl so it is well suited to our needs. fruit trees and vegetable gardens. I have about P1.5 million in the property and was offered P3 million before we broke ground, property is getting expensive.

Why do you settle in city/town then ??? 
For P1.5 million you could have got at least 4 - 8  nice hectares rural and most of rural dont need building permit, which save extra.
Big diferences in prices regional  and land type. Where I buy some sell for only 100k pesos per hectare.

Nice house     but I would have put it far away from neighbours   

manwonder wrote:

coach53 wrote:

(I havent bothered to study the law about this, I have spend my time studying business and real estate laws in an expat point of view   

Best to study this too.. (just to be aware!)

https://www.rappler.com/corruption-in-the-philippines

I have studied corruption. 
We havent paid any. perhaps thats why "everything" is done so very slow   haha

Is the checkpoints belonging to DPWH ?
A Filipino told he havehad to pay total 40 000 pesos  to checkpoints to get his LEGAL products from his location to market in city.  He has similar products as us, but at an oter island.

Some risk tto get blocked when needing reneval of permits as a Filipino got becaue he is "to good" making competitors close,  but our business will sell main part of the production elsewhere anyway so it will not make any "competitor"need to close. Phils IMPORT such products by not producing enough by most such businesses are wrong handled. If the "competitors" are clever they will want to KEEP us, o they can spy and COPY how we do        Much are spread by tsismis (=gossip) anyway as e g we have got around  15 offers of businesses they want to sell, after we had asked only two.
The "face" of our bussiness is my business partner, who has own land but beside that is poor, so I suppouse corrupt people dont bother to try to ask him for bribes      but risk it will change when they get to know we will have bought more than one business and start earning.

Thank you Moon Dog. I plan to build this for considerably less than the Designer quotes in the description:

https://youtu.be/MFv5Fm1jAMQ

A wood house made for animals    did cost 3000 usd to build in USA 2014.
22 x 24 feet, 2 storey. 
(I were to lazy to make the complicated adding of photos, but the outside look foreigner standard while the inside need to be modified for low cost to be made ffor foreigners as I      (Although I will build with other than wood.) 

And a  foreigner built wood house one storey at top of a hill with stunning view was offered fpr sale for 2 million pesos including some hectares land.  I thought a while buying it, but I chosed other municipaly rather far away from there.

Thank you Moon Dog. I plan to build this for considerably less than the Designer quotes in the description:

https://youtu.be/MFv5Fm1jAMQ

Looks good Moon Dog!!!
@66stryker66 - if you feel you have the aptitude to be your own GC (general contractor) and you have an eye for overseeing your build, you can save a lot of money. You can hire a GC but still you will have to watch over you house as it grows from the ground. GC might cost you about 20% of the total. There is a lot of work going into GC. It is project management, engineering, payroll and HR.
It does take a lot of guts to GC and some Tylenol (for headache).

coach53 wrote:

Moon Dog wrote:

We decided to buy land and build. Buying the land began over 10 years ago. We bought an 850 sm property and later bought the adjacent property so now it is 1,700 sm which is good sized. I'm a country boy and my wife is a province girl so it is well suited to our needs. fruit trees and vegetable gardens. I have about P1.5 million in the property and was offered P3 million before we broke ground, property is getting expensive.

Why do you settle in city/town then ??? 
For P1.5 million you could have got at least 4 - 8  nice hectares rural and most of rural dont need building permit, which save extra.
Big diferences in prices regional  and land type. Where I buy some sell for only 100k pesos per hectare.

Nice house     but I would have put it far away from neighbours   

You will not find property anywhere near that price range on Biliran Island and that is where we decided to live, near family and friends. I was comparing our provincial choice to city or gated community type of lifestyle. If you do the math we paid P880 per square meter, compare that to the expat bloggers who paid P2,500 to P4,500 per square meter.

Another plus is the protection Samar provides from typhoons. The folks were living on a Leyte beach and were hit point blank by Yolanda. They are lucky to be alive. Everything they owned was destroyed so we built them a bahay kubo on the back of our property in 2013.

First look at the property in 2009


Neighbor to the west, quiet couple who rarely visit and only other house similar to ours in the barangay. We will be the noisy neighbors.


Neighbor to the east is just a barn owned by Tatay's 1st cousin. Tatay likes to get in the picture.


Behind us is a farmer's field also owned by Tatay's 1st cousin and the ocean is on the other side of the tree line.


The electric was turned on yesterday. Photo from last evening trying out the lights.

FortuneFavorsTheBold wrote:

Thank you Moon Dog. I plan to build this for considerably less than the Designer quotes in the description:

https://youtu.be/MFv5Fm1jAMQ

Looks amazing, good luck.

If you have blue prints you could get by with a good foreman for most of it. You will need the Tylenol when handling the logistics but our foreman has taken care of that end on our other projects.

The engineer and architect are in Cebu and never visited the site. Lido did it all, managing two dozen workers, shouting orders and overcoming the bumps in the road. If there were no problems with material delivery the house would have been finished in 8 months.

For the parents 70 sm bungalow I'm drawing up some simple plans and Lido with build it. Time and material, hope to do it for a million.

Moon Dog wrote:

coach53 wrote:

[Nice house     but I would have put it far away from neighbours   

You will not find property anywhere near that price range on Biliran Island and that is where we decided to live, near family and friends. I was comparing our provincial choice to city or gated community type of lifestyle. If you do the math we paid P880 per square meter, compare that to the expat bloggers who paid P2,500 to P4,500 per square meter.

Im buying for around 8 - 12 p per square meter...      so I get much more hectares for less money.   

Moon Dog wrote:

Another plus is the protection Samar provides from typhoons. The folks were living on a Leyte beach and were hit point blank by Yolanda. They are lucky to be alive. Everything they owned was destroyed so we built them a bahay kubo on the back of our property in 2013.

Yes, but there are other islands much more protected      not that close to The North Typhon Belt.

Now that`s a huge house!Happy for you.We're thinking maybe about one story 125 sq.mtr. at the most.My wife is from Mindanao specifically Butuan City.I don`t know if that`s close to where you are.
Thank you for your info.

ingkongjure wrote:

Now that`s a huge house!Happy for you.We're thinking maybe about one story 125 sq.mtr. at the most.My wife is from Mindanao specifically Butuan City.I don`t know if that`s close to where you are.
Thank you for your info.

Thanks, 125 sm is a nice size, especially if it is only you and your wife. Biliran Island is connected to northern Leyte by a single bridge so it's a good distance north of Butuan City. We are at the tip of the white arrow on the map.

Really better if your there during construction you get ripped off if not but that is the Philippines, I know a lot of contractors and carpenters, and they can do a good fast job, but need supervision, I have been ask by people who are building and can not be there to watch the project, I was ask by a friend who was building a house to check on it, when I arrived at 9 in the morning no workers they started showing up later, I found work not needed extra material in the truss, I noticed the price on some items to high I use the same supplier, and know one of the truck drivers, he told me of the scam they were using, one of the clerk's and the carpenters work together they deliver the materials but there is a ticket for the owner that is high price, they split the money, so you need to take care, they will do things to make the job last longer

Yes, as I said, paying daily salaries and buying the materials will save you a lot of money in many ways. Paying by the job gives contractors many ways to gouge the homeowner. 50,000 pesos for a 10,000 peso job in the example I posted before. Needless to say this would amount to millions lost with building a house.

coach53 wrote:

Moon Dog wrote:

coach53 wrote:

[Nice house     but I would have put it far away from neighbours   

You will not find property anywhere near that price range on Biliran Island and that is where we decided to live, near family and friends. I was comparing our provincial choice to city or gated community type of lifestyle. If you do the math we paid P880 per square meter, compare that to the expat bloggers who paid P2,500 to P4,500 per square meter.

Im buying for around 8 - 12 p per square meter...      so I get much more hectares for less money.   

Moon Dog wrote:

Another plus is the protection Samar provides from typhoons. The folks were living on a Leyte beach and were hit point blank by Yolanda. They are lucky to be alive. Everything they owned was destroyed so we built them a bahay kubo on the back of our property in 2013.

Yes, but there are other islands much more protected      not that close to The North Typhon Belt.

I appreciate what you are saying coach, space, cheap land etc etc. but it comes with other costs though perhaps not financial but convenience to services, family etc etc. If you don't need then you are on a winner.
We are all individuals and select a situation to suit our personal needs and wants. But, sometimes a partner/family dictate location no different to the budget and all inclusive.

In saying that we all like a bargain and they can be found if you are patient and research as you obviously do coach, as we did. Going by local sales here now we have more than doubled our money/investment in 4 years. Location, location etc.

I give credit to all expats coming to this country to live, invest in their future whether renting or buying and leaving what they know and embracing a new culture with its good and bad. Family. Cheaper living. Weather,,,,, doh. Taal is doing its thing again, our thoughts go out to those being evacuated as we speak.

Stay safe.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.

Well put Steve. I could care less about 8 peso per square meter property in the boonies. Taal will probably enable us to get a better price on the lot we are buying in Tagaytay.

bigpearl wrote:

I appreciate what you are saying coach, space, cheap land etc etc. but it comes with other costs though perhaps not financial but convenience to services, family etc etc. If you don't need then you are on a winner.

But an other reason to settle there is being far enough AWAY from family of the spouse     
I like calm and dont like suprice visits and if living close to famiy of spouse I suppouse they will come often.
Once I thought " Oh people coming here to ofen."  When I counted it ad been three in a WEEK             (Pump installer, mail package delivery and electric company passed to check the electric line behinf my house.)
That DONT mean Im a hermit     I want calm home in NATURE, but I go to town when I want o meet people.  (E g going to exersise "my" club twice per week plus away  with them at competitions most weekends during season. Im rather famous in Sweden as leader in that sport by I have lead two different clubs from bottom to Swedish elite. Not now by Im to injuried. Elite sports arent healthy 

Cooncerning convinience - If there is an electric line (or enough own solar) and ok road, everything are just some minutes drive away, except  seldom needed offices as BI and LTO, which are in the province capital.  The rest of conviniences depend just of how convinient house we rent/buy/build        I have eveything in my remote house in Sweden except microwave oven because I dont want any    
Living rural has OTHER conviencies CITY living DONT have as e g
/no disturbing - if away enough from neighbour roosters   
/no parking problems
/no pollution
/much nicer view
/SHORTER to some food . Just open the door and pick fresh   

FortuneFavorsTheBold wrote:

Well put Steve. I could care less about 8 peso per square meter property in the boonies. Taal will probably enable us to get a better price on the lot we are buying in Tagaytay.

Lower than 8pesos per squaremeter in Tagaytay ?
I claim No chance - except perhaps for some only using right, which the government will take back soon          or perhaps posiblie very far away from closest road.
(Years ago there were some for 4p, but during the last years is the lowest found 6p for just using right and both I and Filipinos have searched a lot.  (Except one for 4p for using right given in a program.  but I found out tthey had screwed up, not ffullfilling the demands several years so it was expected to be taken back by the government.)

Coach, I think you missed the point. It's not all about your choices and decisions, that is where your future is directed, this is an open forum and also about those that participate, if a member is happy to pay 100 pesos per M2 to make his/her life easier and what they want then accept that is their choice. I see your choices and I'm sure you will enjoy, if I was single perhaps myself also,,,,,,,,,,, nope I'd still be in Australia. Each to their own and trying to sell ice to an Eskimo? Perhaps if living in the Sahara.

Hope you get back soon coach, get your teeth into the issues and problems constantly plaguing all that live here.

Cheers, Steve.

bigpearl wrote:

Hope you get back soon coach, get your teeth into the issues and problems constantly plaguing all that live here.

Cheers, Steve.

Ditto

bigpearl wrote:

Coach, I think you missed the point. It's not all about your choices and decisions, that is where your future is directed, this is an open forum and also about those that participate, if a member is happy to pay 100 pesos per M2 to make his/her life easier and what they want then accept that is their choice. I see your choices and I'm sure you will enjoy, if I was single perhaps myself also,,,,,,,,,,, nope I'd still be in Australia. Each to their own and trying to sell ice to an Eskimo? Perhaps if living in the Sahara..

Yes. I just say they can get much more for their money   

bigpearl wrote:

Hope you get back soon coach, get your teeth into the issues and problems constantly plaguing all that live here. .

Im on it allready    as could be seen in the special topic about registration  problem, which it seem I had got blocked in from telling the continue. 

There have been some progress
Perhaps we will get BIR registration at the FOURTH time going there     After that is the business registration done   

None business buy done yet but will be as soon as oficials have corrected the wrong lot number mess. Or earlier if any of the other deals will be done earlier 

bigpearl wrote:

Coach, I think you missed the point. It's not all about your choices and decisions, that is where your future is directed, this is an open forum and also about those that participate, if a member is happy to pay 100 pesos per M2 to make his/her life easier and what they want then accept that is their choice. I see your choices and I'm sure you will enjoy, if I was single perhaps myself also,,,,,,,,,,, nope I'd still be in Australia. Each to their own and trying to sell ice to an Eskimo? Perhaps if living in the Sahara.

Hope you get back soon coach, get your teeth into the issues and problems constantly plaguing all that live here.

Cheers, Steve.

Well said Steve, I appreciate Coach's input but he is missing my point. I was not going to just live anywhere. If they were giving land away in some far off place I would not be interested. The wife wants to be with her family and so do I. She has a great family and her parents aren't getting any younger and she's the oldest daughter and you know how they do in the Philippines. When this farmer's field was subdivided into a half dozen or so 850 sq. mtr. building lots they went fast and we jumped on one and were lucky enough to buy the adjacent lot 5 years later. We have all the room we need for the big house plus a large front yard and side yards and plenty of room in the back for a bungalow, work shop, swimming pool, garden, pig pen, chicken pen, cottage and a wide assortment of fruit trees. I've lived in rural Georgia for the last 9 years on a 2 1/2 acre property with just over 100 live oak trees. I've had my fill of raking leaves and picking up sticks, time to really retire and do things I enjoy doing.

How much are they selling lots at Candaba swamp, Pampanga?

Answering Rey's questions (aka 66stryker66):
1. Is it better to buy a land and build? If so Why?
Build: I say this because I have the skills to GC a residential house. But be present at build site 125% of the time. Moondog is great example for this.
Why?: If done right, your house will be what you wanted with better quality and you can save a lot. Quality of the build is on you. There is also this priceless feeling of accomplishment. It is good transition from working full time to retirement. (Doing nothing). I am tempted to add emoji here.
2. If I will get a container to bring our household Electronics/Furniture etc, what is the limit amount before custom will tax?
There is a Philippine government program for retiring Balikbayan. I believe there is a certain value of goods you can bring in tax free. For some reason $7000 comes to mind but I could be way off. In this context 'tax free' is subjective. There are businesses that helps in this area. I usually read through shusterman website. Shusterman is an immigration lawyer in NY married to a Filipina.
Hope this helps.

There are certain ceremonies to follow when building a house in the Philippines. Before the cement was poured in the column footings a few coins were tossed in. That one is common but the foreman needed to pour some pig's blood in each hole as well. I bought a pig and not to be wasteful the pig was cooked and eaten by the family and workers.

We will soon arrange for a priest to come and bless the house but there was a ceremony yesterday that I was unaware of. A man walked through the house and outbuilding with a shovel full of live coals and Nanay's nephew followed with a bowl of pig's blood. I'm guessing the purpose was to exorcise any unwelcome spirits? Could be a good thing I suppose, you never know.

In and around the work shop, nephew following with pig's blood.
[img][/img]

Smoking the demons out of the dining room area.
[img][/img]

Clearing out the upstairs bedrooms
[img][/img]

The terrace of my bedroom, nephew on the right with the blood.
[img][/img]

Jackson4 wrote:

Looks good Moon Dog!!!
@66stryker66 - if you feel you have the aptitude to be your own GC (general contractor) and you have an eye for overseeing your build, you can save a lot of money. You can hire a GC but still you will have to watch over you house as it grows from the ground. GC might cost you about 20% of the total. There is a lot of work going into GC. It is project management, engineering, payroll and HR.
It does take a lot of guts to GC and some Tylenol (for headache).

Thanks, Was trying to avoid building from scratch but most likely I will get a refutable contractor with references if I need to so I save money on tylenol haha. US Fed tax bracket only allows me to withdraw $100K each year on my 401K retirement to be on 8.6%. Anything over $100K income  will cause 24%. I sold my house last year for $560K and took about $200K profit and because of Trump's booming presidential term it accelerated my retirement early due to gain on my stocks. Since I can only withdraw 100K or about 5M pesos each year, it will take longer to build the house. Another option is to get a mortgage loan there for a 5yr term then finish the house faster. I still got about 2yrs to retire so plenty of things to think about and plan will change.

Congratulations Moon Dog!!! your house looks good.
Base from my experienced it is more cheaper to build a house compare to buying new house.