PhilFAQS

In the more than 8 years now that I have been intimately familiar with what people are looking for in the Philippines it would be no secret that houses are at the top of the list.  Home to buy and homes to rent.  I bet I have looked, conservatively, at several hundred web sites myself.

Typically I recommend people not even bother with looking at any online real estate sites.  The vast majority are ‘dead’ … listing put up months ago and never updated.  Almost all the sites I have seen have virtually no inventory as well … you’re lucky if you can find 10 separate listings (5 of which are ‘pipe dream’ developments which someone intends to build if he sells enough lots) and the other 5 or so will be vastly overpriced in order to ‘hook’ the foreigner who comes along looking to get some ideas about prices and availability.

I personally found a nice looking listing a Filipino buy and sell site when I first moved here, seemed worth a trip to look at.  When my wife contacted the folks who were selling, privately, they jacked the price up 1,000,000 PhP from what they had listed on the site itself.  Hello!  I was born at night but it wasn’t last night. (and this shenanigan is what they were trying to pull on my wife, they had no idea there was foreigner involved.  Advertise at an attractive price and then just bald-faced raise the price whenever someone shows a remote interest.  Nonsense).

Here’s an excellent real estate site I came across via my friend Bob down in Davao City.  It’s run by a really professional real estate agent who knows her business and doesn’t seem to be engaging in any of that bait and switch nonsense.  She has pages and pages of for sale listings and an ample selection of rentals as well .. rare indeed.  The prices I see listed are well within reason, in fact many of the smaller existing homes have lots twice the size as are common here on the outskirts of Metro Manila and the prices are often lower.

Anyway, this won’t be of a lot of use unless you are planning to live in Davao, but it is really nice ‘eye candy’ and you can learn a lot about the market anywhere by seeing how the homes are listed and what factors are common and what makes different properties unique.

Thanks, Lea, for providing such a useful and attractive site … I wish I know someone in the business here in Luzon who would be interested in doing one half as well.

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1. Did Marrying Our Wives Make Them Smarter?
2. Montebello Villa Hotel, Cebu City
3. More About Jobs In The Philippines
4. A Little Trip to Davao City
5. Questions, Questions, Questions 3

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